OUR occasional ramble through the animal kingdom has brought us to the toad.

Photographer Andy Compton found this fine specimen in the pond at the Shropshire Hills Discovery Centre in Craven Arms.

Toads are usually popularly received as most of us have grown up with the image of Mr Toad, the likeable and popular comic character from the Kenneth Grahame novel The Wind in the Willows, but they are rather less frequently seen than frogs and so need to be looked after when we find one.