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It can be hard to cross a busy road if you're a toad, but volunteers in Somerset have been lending a hand - literally!

Over 50 people joined the Charlcombe Toad Rescue Group to guide a patrol of toads, frogs and newts safely to their breeding lake.

By carefully picking up the creatures and carrying them over the road, they managed to help a grand total of 3,177 toads - around 60 for every volunteer!

Every year, Charlcombe Lane is closed for six weeks as the amphibians travel across, but these conservationists sayit's becoming harder to know when they might start to travel.

Helen Hobbs, who has managed Charlcombe Toad Rescue since 2003, said: "The biggest challenge this year was that the busiest night of the year was on February 6 - a week before the road was due to close."

Helen said "a changing climate" has made it "increasingly difficult to predict" when frogs and toads might start crossing the road.

Toads will hibernate over winter when the temperature starts to drop, but warmer winters can cause toads to become confused about when to wake up from hibernation.

This means they might start to cross the road to the lake sooner than expected.

Scientists collected data from toad patrols in 2016, which showed that the number of toads in the UK had decreased by 68% over 30 years.

But data collected by conservation charity Froglife showed that more than 115,000 amphibians were helped across A-roads or quiet country lanes in 2023.

Froglife operations manager Sheila Gundry said she was pleased to hear that the Charlcombe Toad Rescue had helped so many amphibians, saying: "It is wonderful to have such a good news story of people and wildlife working so well together."