Meet the team of volunteers helping toads cross the road safely in Bristol

• Volunteers explain how they are helping toads during their migration.

How did the toad cross the road?

In a bucket carried by a volunteer from the Fishponds Toad Patrol.

It's no joke, but a nightly ritual for amphibians and humans alike as the annual four-week pilgrimage of thousands of toads to their breeding grounds gets underway.

As in other parts of the West Country, teams of people are scouring the undergrowth for the camouflaged creatures who make trips of several miles once dusk falls and the weather is damp and mild.

Patroller John Alcock said: "Here we have a major migration going on on our doorstep and yet the toads are under threat from cars and cyclists.

"We can save them and help them keep breeding and keep the population going by popping them in our buckets and walking them over the busy road.

"We always get such a positive reaction. People will be up a few yards up the track and say 'here, I've found a toad for you', so I think people care once they realise what you're doing." 

The Fishponds group estimate they delivery around 900 toads every year with thousands making the trip unaided.

Not all of them make it but the toad patrols are keeping the vast majority safe and protecting a species whose numbers have fallen significantly in recent decades as house building and loss of habitat increases.

Volunteer Helen Kinsella said: "You don't get to see toads every day so it's great to just meet them, pick them up.

"They're not as slimy as you'd expect. They're usually quite wet. You kind of feel their bones underneath. But I think they're lovely. I find them quite nice to hold."

Sam Fisher has been helping out for the last six years.

He said: "These little creatures have been going to the ponds for hundreds of years whereas the infrastructure has built up around them and it doesn't really feel fair that humans have destroyed their routes and their habitats, so it's nice to give something back."