Why have I got a toad in my London garden?

[IlanaK]

We found one on our patio today (which totally freaked me out by the way!). I am assuming it is a toad. Picture on my profile in a minute when I upload it. It was brown and spotty looking and largish. We have a brand new landscaped garden - nothing overgrown. We have a very large garden (for London) at over 100 ft. All the gardens round here are a similar size so it could have come from any of them, but none of the ones bordering us have ponds.

What is freaking me out the most is I don't know where it has gone now!!

iirc toads spend a fair bit of time out of water, unlike frogs

my parents get them in their garden quite a lot. they have no ponds nearby either,

if your garden has just been landscaped it's possible they disturbed the toad's house

is it smooth or lumpy?

That looks like a frog.

Toads have dry wary skin and crawl, frogs have damp skin and hop.

Both can live very well in damp undergrowth and may only return to water to breed, and then they only need a small pond.

Wary skin? warty

They don't need a lot of water. Just an old container that has filled up with rainwater will be enough for them. I think in winter they live on dry land so it probably has found somewhere to creep under to over-winter. They are very good for the garden - they eat slugs! And they don't jump, unexpectedly, like frogs do (urgh). They just crawl around.

Just looked at the picture. That looks like a frog - trying to hop indoors as soon as the door is opened. Nightmare!

Ah ok. It definitely hopped - we saw it. So it is a frog. Thankfully it was nowhere near our door! Our neighbour has lots of snails (we don't in our garden) so maybe it lives there and hoped through a gap in the fence.

They eat flies not snails.

they eat all sorts!

yes looks froggy, ahh it's sweet

We had bonking frogs on our doorstep once. I thought it was one enormous frog at first.

And in the house before that (not bonking, but the cat caught them. [hhm]

We had no known pond nearby.

I live in a city, and we have frogs in our (mostly hard lanscaped) small garden. We do have a teeny tiny pond which they obviously like, but the garden is surrounded on all sides by solid walls at least six foot high.

Dropped by a bird, maybe?

the live anywhere damp don't they? maybe they can burrow under walls

We found one in our downstairs loo once when we came back from holiday.

Musta come up the pipe!