Drawn home for love

Common toads, Bufo bufo, begin to mate from March onwards, when the temperature reaches 7°C. They are capable of travelling up to two miles to return to their original pond, navigating through smell and moving with a crawling motion. Their journeys are made at night so they can benefit from the cooler, damper conditions. A female may be twice as large as her mate, who climbs onto her back in an embrace called amplexus. Spawning in deeper water than frogs, ropes of double or triple rows of eggs are produced which wind around plant stems. These strings can contain up to 6,000 eggs and measure 6½-10ft (2-3m) in length. Once laid, the toad spawn takes up to 12 days to hatch. The dark coloured tadpoles mature into toadlets, which are usually ready to leave the pond by the end of July. Adult toads live mostly out of water for the rest of the year, often only returning to ponds when it is time to breed again.