I must say I'm impressed by his adventures, he made it across 80ft of garden, up some steps, across the decking and into the compost. So I reckon he/she (they???) is a survivor.
Hi Pamela - I love common toads amongst other reasons for their bloodymindedness - some are known to have travelled 3 MILES to their ancestral breeding ponds (and presumably back to where they spend the rest of the year), and after tidying the garden a couple of years ago, I was perplexed to find one staring up at me when I opened the garden bin "Trying to get rid of me are you?"
They don't need (much) water - they mainly need places to hide under - but I one of ours was in the pond regularly in the recent insane heat, so as others note, filling the pond, or even an old ice cream tub or the like might help him/them if it gets very hot again.
Nice that you have a toad and even better that you a making a pond. Toads roam widely and somewhere not too far away will be his/her ancestral pond. Your toad may or may not, probably not, use your pond for spawning next year but maybe years in the future his great, great grandchildren will. Meanwhile the pond is good for many other creatures.
Based in Sussex, I garden to encourage as many birds to my garden as possible.
When we were little we used to find a toad or two under the slabs in the garden, one year we made a little dug-out for a big one, covered it with a bit of old hardboard, covered that with soil & grass, popped the toad in and that's where he chose to stay! Anywhere safe and cool is good, although they can cope with more heat than frogs, underneath a big slab is quite cool, so you could put one amongst shrubs with a couple of access holes and he might move in - although a nice damp compost bag sounds appealing to me in this weather too!! 😥
I’ve found toads hiding in my compost bags before now. There are others in the garden who live in cracks in the garden walls, and in between the roots of trees.
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I do that sort of thing frequently.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
The thing is, I read it as “in sun” … so one error compounding the other 🙄
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.