Frogs (and their tadpole babies), toads and newts are just three of many species of amphibians. Frogs exist worldwide (from flying frogs to poisonous dart frogs to frogs that have sadly gone extinct, due to pathogens).
Let’s learn all about them, what habitats and lifestyles they like, then of course how to protect them. England has five main species of amphibians:
All native amphibians are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, so cannot be harmed or sold for profit. Report Wildlife Crime (anonymous, if wished).
England’s Main Species of Amphibians
Common frogs have long legs and ‘slimy skin’ and jump high (the same as if you could jump the length of two buses). Their tongues are so long, it’s like your tongue reaching your belly button! Like all amphibians, they like ponds and damp places.
Common toads are rarer, as they tend to be prefer wild ponds, which we’ve lost in masses. They ‘walk’ rather than jump, and have dry ‘warty’ skin’. One of their rare predators are otters.
We have three species of Newts (common, palmate and great-crested newts – males sport handsome crests, during breeding season). Often mistaken for lizards, newts are slower to move and only have four toes (lizards have five unless they’re slow worms – often mistaken for snakes).
Native Pool Frogs are rare. They breed later than common frogs and have a loud call (generated by inflatable pouches on their mouth sides).
Marsh Frogs are found in southeast England and have a distinct ‘cackling sound’. They are larger (and more green) than common frogs). The best way to help them is to restore our wetlands.
Natterjack Toads are again rare, and found in coastal areas. They also ‘walk’ with short legs, and have yellow stripes on their backs. At night, they gather around breeding pools, emitting rasping calls that can be heard for up to a mile.
Always walk on designated paths near sand dunes, to avoid disturbance. This is also good to avoid disturbing seal pups (hidden in sand dunes by their mums). Keep dogs on leads, especially during breeding season. If you find a stranded pup or injured seal, call British Marine Life Rescue for help and advice.
North American bullfrogs were illegally released in the wild (likely from the pet trade) . They eat other amphibians. If sighted, they are caught, to prevent breeding in the wild.
Just like mink, this shows havoc created when irresponsible people import non-native species, which harms all species, due to human green for the pet and fur trades.
Don’t Use Snail & Slug Pellets
Garden organically and amphibian friends will find your garden, taking care of unwelcome visitors, all part of the natural food chain. Slug pellets could kill them, and also are unsafe near children and pets (and give horrible deaths to slugs and snails, which have a place in the ecosystem too).
You can bin empty pesticide bottles. For half-empty bottles, enter postcode at Garden Chemical Disposal to find where to safely dispose of them. Never pour them down drain or sinks.
Read up on safe humane deterrents for snails and slugs (there are some really cool inventions that work to deter, then frogs will eat them). Two are:
Molluskit is a ‘comb design’ barrier that clicks together, to stop access to plants above ground (and blocks access to root/bulb systems), and is tested by Scotland’s Rural College to be 86% effective. The average garden contains 30,000 slugs and snails, 95% of them are underground.
Grazers G2 is a mix of plant extracts and calcium (good for plants) that makes plants unpalatable to snails and slugs, so they look elsewhere for food. The company also makes a similar product to deter cabbage white butterflies and red lily beetles (the main product is used to make grass unpalatable to other creatures – don’t use on grass where small pets eat).
Become a Toad Lollipop Lady!
Toads have strong migrating instincts. Each year, they return to ancestral breeding ponds to give birth, and this often means crossing roads. It’s estimated that around 250,000 toads are killed each year on UK roads (the city of Bath recently closed a road for 6 weeks, to let them safely migrate).
So you can sign up to become a Toad Patroller (you’ll need a torch and good natural rubber wellies!) Volunteers carry toads to safety in buckets (usually at night). So they can safely reach the other side, to meet their beloved!
Never, Ever Use Garden Strimmers
These are the bain of wildlife rescue charities, as they cause awful injuries to frogs, hedgehogs and other sleeping wildlife. Gardena Grass Shears are precise, comfortable and suitable for right-handed or left-handed use.
If you do use a garden strimmer, gently run a broom through grass beforehand, to allow creatures a chance of escape. Same with robotic lawnmowers (these move too fast, to let sleeping wildlife wake up). For small gardens, choose a modern cylinder (hand) mower (read more on wildlife-friendly lawn care).
Avoid ‘forking’ compost heaps (frogs like living under them). Also check sheds and outbuildings for nesting hedgehogs (lift floor carefully, and do not disturb nests, postponing work for at least a month, until sure they have left).
Offer Safe Shelter to Garden Amphibians
Leave your garden ‘a bit messy’ with log piles and sheltered damp areas. You can create a ‘toad home’ by knocking a hole in the side of an upturned plant pot, or buy a wood version from garden centres, placing leaves and grass inside. Or make a frog house from old bricks or logs covered in soil, and site in well-drained soil (plants will quickly grow over it).
Simon King’s Frog Log (also sold at Wildlife Aid) is sold with a 10-year guarantee (excluding damage by animals or high winds), and provides a cool safe space for frogs and toads, made from Clayplas (natural clay with recycled plastic). Can be placed in a quiet cool shaded area near ponds, to protect visiting amphibians from predators and frost. Cover with extra vegetation in winter, for added protection.
Eco Frogilo Frog House is a safe and durable home with a tagine-style roof for frogs and toads, offering protection from predators and garden tools. The insulation shelf is also ideal for over-wintering. Place this near a damp area or pond, in a quiet cool shady position. The cutaway base in the house, allows contact with cool soil in summer.
The Frog and Toad Bunker (also for use by newts) offers another frostproof design that is good as a hibernation site. Made from long-lasting woodstone, this again offers cooling during hot summer days.
The Rain Can is a 7-litre mini watering can, made from partly recycled ocean plastic. It has a sloping lid channel to collect rainwater. Plus an integrated ‘frog ladder’, so curious critters won’t get trapped.
Keep Amphibians Safe Near Swimming Pools
Pools are not just drowning hazards, but chlorine can harm permeable skin of amphibians.
Frog Log was invented by a US wildlife biologist, and has wonderful reviews. It’s placed around pool decks to allow quick escape for small critters. Use the recommended number, based on pool size. Can be used for automatic and solar covers, and only takes minutes to install.
If used with Critter Skimmer (which prevents small creatures getting sucked into skimmers), FrogLog recommends turning off the skimmer at night (or if regulations only allow brief shutdown, to ‘cycle off’ at dusk).
Create a Wildlife-Safe Pond
If there are no nearby ponds, amphibians will find puddles, buckets or unsafe open barrels of water. So use quality water butts (with child/pet safe locks).
Although toads love wild ponds, frogs mostly now spawn in garden ponds, and don’t venture far from home. Although nature means that few tadpoles and froglets survive, wildlife-friendly ponds is where amphibians breed and spawn.
Site ponds in partial sun (not under trees) with washed larger stones as ‘natural ramps’ to avoid drowning. Fill with oxygenated plants and rainwater, and creatures will soon find your pond.
Read how to make your garden safe for pets, to know plants to avoid near animal friends.
Simon King’s Wildlife Pond costs around £400 (guaranteed for 5 years) and is made to order from polyurethane resin. Small enough to fit most gardens, it’s easy to install (sink the deep water section below ground level). The raised top lip curls up and over, to form a refuge for small animals (and shelter amphibians to shelter from cold weather).
The bog garden shallows are perfect to add gravel, soil or marsh-loving plants, and the pond features aquatic planter pits (refuge for invertrabates and mini-beasts), secure ledges for emergent water plants and a deep water section, for small water creatures.
Building and maintaining wildlife ponds requires know-how. Read the post on how to build a garden pond for wildlife and the book How to Create a Wildlife Pond.
RHS has a fantastic suite of pages on how to build and maintain ponds and wildlife ponds (ensure pump has a wildlife protection system).
Delay pond maintenance until September/October (when froglets have left, before common frogs arrive to hibernate). For urgent work, place amphibians in a suitable container with pond water, then return them ((tadpoles remain in ponds over winter, only to develop in spring).
If you move house, ask the new householders if they plan to upkeep the pond. If not, move amphibians to a neighbour’s pond with permission (not faraway, as this could transmit disease and invasive plants).
Found a Stranded Frog, Toad or Newt?
As long as amphibians are within a few hundred metres of a pond, most are okay (and toads swell themselves up if threatened, so may be okay, even if they look odd!)
If you find a creature in the hot sun or near a road, wear disposable gloves (rinsed to remove chemicals from your hands), then gently place in a carboard box with air-vents lined with soaked paper towels (not newspaper, due to inks which could harm permeable skin).
Then carefully move it to sheltered foliage or somewhere a bit damp (nearby, it doesn’t have to be a pond – they will find their own way, as long as it’s not too far from where you found it).
If the amphibian appears injured, call your local wildlife rescue. Most vets (funded by the RSPCA) will put injured wildlife to sleep, if you ask. If in doubt, take photos and send to Froglife.
Register dead amphibians at Garden Wildlife Health Project. A few dead amphibians in ponds can be left. More than that is best to buyr, to avoid diseased pond water.
Campaign for Amphibian-Friendly Planning
Current planning laws are strict (builders must not disturb sites occupied by breeding amphibians). But recently, the Deputy Prime Minister says she plans to make the laws more lax, to build affordable homes.
We obviously need housing, but this can be done while still protecting amphibian habitats. Councils and planners can download free materials and get expert help from Froglife and Amphibian & Reptile Conservation.
Councils can help by restoring filled-in ponds, so local amphibians have natural places to breed and spawn, feed and rest. Portland volunteer group Depave has a wonderful free e-book on how to (safely) rip up old asphalt car parks etc, and replace them with green wildlife-friendly spaces like community gardens (with pet-safe plants) and wildlife ponds.
Road deaths are a big issue for amphibians (read how to make roads safer for wildlife). Ask your council to install amphibian ladders near wells, drain covers and ponds, which can save up to 90% of creatures, if installed at the right heights for them to climb out.
ACO Wildlife Gully Ladder stops small creatures from getting trapped in roadside gully pots (this kills thousands of amphibians each year). Stainless steel weighting bars prevent the adjustable ladder from rising during heavy rain, with each pack containing enough mesh and bars for around 25 ladders.
This product is used alongside Wildlife Kerb (to replace existing kerbs), Stop Channel and wildlife tunnels (to prevent creatures climbing into dangerous areas – made from recycled polymer concrete, these last for 50 years with little maintenance).
Books to Learn More About Amphibians
The Book of the Frog is the ideal jumping-off point for anyone interested in amphibians! Yorkshire wildlife writer Sally examines these remarkable creatures that have mastered both land and water, and can breathe through both their skin and lungs. The book looks at frogs worldwide, and has plenty of tips on how to make your garden frog-friendly.
So You Want To Be a Frog? is a smashing book to educate children on the day in the life of a frog. Beautifully illustrated, it educates while being enormous fun: Want to be part of the Frog Club? Can you:
- Sit still for hours?
- Catch food with just your tongue?
- Thrive on flies?
- Stare without blinking?
- Breathe underwater
- Hop 20 times your body length?
- Drink through your skin?
Helping Frogs Further Afield
There are quite a few ways that we can help frogs in other countries too.
Switch medical charity donations to humane research (above are the ladies who campaigned against vivisection, back in Victorian times). These use modern, kind, effective and cheaper methods to find cures for ‘incurable disease’ but receive far fewer donations and no government funding. Many creatures are used in vivisection, including frogs.
Avoid dissection. This is not common in UK schools (but still happens in universities and medical schools). 12 million creatures worldwide (including frogs) are used for school dissection (done so, because their hearts apparently have similar anatomy).
But there are wonderful alternatives that are kinder, healthier (no formaldehyde), prevent zoonotic disease from imports and are also more effective and cheaper (experiments can be repeated, using the same software).
Merge Cube is an interactive learning tool that lets students do many things (including dissect a digital frog). Users can also investigate the earth’s core, explore a DNA molecule and ‘hold fossils’.
Learn how to save the rainforests, as many of the world’s frogs live in them. Red-eyed tree frogs ‘startle predators’ by opening their green eyelids to temporarily stun anything trying to eat them! They can change the colour of their bodies (from green to yellow or blue) and have cup-like footpads to let them cling to rainforest canopy trees.
The best ways to help rainforests from afar are to buy recycled paper and wood (to avoid logging), avoid rainforest beef/soy, avoid palm oil, and avoid buying essential oils from endangered trees (like rosewood).
If you travel abroad, don’t eat frogs’ legs. This is going out of fashion these days, with them not being a common item on French menus anymore.
