Toad time

For reasons that will be clear to anyone who read my blog on Wednesday, I am devoting this week's Nature Friday post to the subject of TOADS.

Not that, after my recent unfortunate encounter, I am in any way devoted to these ugly, warty-skinned amphibians...

First let's have a look at the Bufo bufo, known in the UK simply as the common toad. Here's one that Gail spotted when out on a walk in Blackhall Forest with Bertie on 25 March 2020.

And here's a bunch of them, photographed on the same day, indulging in what I think can best be described as a toad orgy. 

Shall I let you into a secret? Gail tells me she didn't post these photos at the time because, as you might have already deduced, this was two days into the UK's harsh 'lockdown' and she didn't want to get arrested...  I note that my predecessor Bertie is looking a wee bit furtive here, don't you think? 

Anyway, back to the toads. The good news is that Bufo bufo, which is the type I 'kissed', is nowhere near as poisonous as some of the species of toad found on other continents. Gail tells me that if I had toyed with the notoriously poisonous Cane Toad (Rhinella marina) I likely wouldn't be here to tell the tale...

What about toads in literature?

Well of course we first think of Mr. Toad of Toad Hall from Kenneth Grahame's  'The Wind in the Willows' (one of Gail's favourite childhood books). Mr. Toad was portrayed as wayward, ebullient, over-confident and boastful - sounds like my kind of guy! 

British poet Philip Larkin wrote a poem titled Toads, although it's about the trials of working life, and not a nature poem at all, as you can see from the first two verses:

Toads by Philip Larkin

Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?
Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork
And drive the brute off?

Six days of the week it soils
With its sickening poison -
Just for paying a few bills!
That's out of proportion.

Mr Larkin was never the cheeriest of poets. So finally, let's lighten the mood again and turn to culinary matters.

Although it seems that French frogs have the edge over toads in the legs department, I do like the look of the classic British dish 'Toad in the Hole'.

Gail says she might bake me a Toad in Hole one day, in the faint hope that I might learn what kind of toad it is and isn't acceptable to put in my mouth...