The toads return

A wonderfully warm spring day which started with an early morning walk round Thorpe Wood, which was looking beautiful, the low sunlight shining through the translucent young leaves of hazel, blackthorn and hawthorn with dew-spangled wood anemones and primroses carpeting the coppice plots, punctuated by the first few spikes of bluebell. As expected, several blackcap were singing, and I spotted great tits, stock doves and jackdaws nest building.  

The rest of the day was spent at home or in the garden, though at 3 p.m. many neighbours gathered at the end of their drives to have a shared cup of tea (or beer)  - lots of rather loud chat while maintaining appropriate social distancing.

After dinner I went out to see how our ponds were doing. We've had one or two toads in the ponds for some time, but the warm spring weather had clearly triggered their breeding instinct, and I found many males heading resolutely across the garden, as well as several huge females already in the water. I love their gentle piping call - very different from the frogs. Hopefully they'll also have a successful breeding season, though I wonder if there's really going to be enough space, as we already have a bumper population of frog tadpoles.