Thursday night came along with a toad-ally newt task for GoodGym Hounslow! Man on a mission Madhan and I met with Jo from Wild Chiswick and Clare from the London Wildlife Trust who explained the aim of the mission. Amphibians in the UK are in decline, and they are an important part of our ecosystem.

Chiswick Business Park is home to a whole load of water loving four legged beasts, however (without going to Attenborough) humans are making their lives hard. Toads and newts are falling into drains around the office blocks, and sadly are unable to get out, so drown and die. They are also massively at risk at getting run over by the cars and vehicles coming in and out. A real drain in the arse!

Our role for the evening was to search inside the many drains, nooks and holes for any of these small creatures, and help rescue them… A very toad-in-the-wholesome task!

Armed with torches, nets and a bucket… plus Madhan’s newfound knoll-age of what a group of toads if called (a knoll, if you hadn’t guessed yet!), we walked around the car parks and buildings. At first we felt a bit silly peering down into the water system, when all we could see were leaves and rain, but that all changed by car park 3, when we spotted our first baby toad in need of saving! With a careful net placed between the metal bars, we were able to fish out the toad, and keep him safe in the bucket to be released well away from the car park!

The evening ended with three successful rescues (and one more once Madhan and I had gone). We did spot one big boy was still down the pipes, however he got scared and we couldn’t quite save him at this time. Clare told us this fella was down there last week too, so he was surviving in his drain prison, luckily.

It was a ribbet-ing task. Clare and Jo informed us that during the spring months there are sometimes a hundred newts, toads and frogs rescued in an evening! Toad-day was just the start of a new GoodGym journey, and we hop to be back to help again soon for more amphibian action.