A gathering of toads

Today has been wonderfully sunny and springlike, I even went on a walk without a coat! I went along the Montgomery Canal to a small nature reserve where spring was beginning in earnest. I saw long-tailed tits, butterflies, bees and a large number of toads swimming around one of the ponds. One was sitting on the canal towpath and slowly walked to the water's edge, dropped in and swam to the other side. I was glad that it wasn't grabbed by a pike on it's journey across.