The warmer wet weather is starting to encourage some action out on the moss. On Friday I headed out onto the Moss and passed an old sheet of corrugated iron. Now turning over corrugated iron sheets is a much underrated pastime as you never know what you might find. Sometimes it is an ants nest, sometimes a vole or two and I live in hope if finding an adder under one though that was never going to happen this time of year. This time there blinking in the day light was a toad. Almost certainly it had in the last few days come out of a hibernation, about a month later than many years. As soon as it has got itself together and had a feed of slugs and earthworms it will head off to its spawning grounds for a few weeks of mating activity. On Flanders this might be the lochan or smaller puddles, ditches and pools. Someone the other day told me that toads can live for up to 40 years if lucky. I rather like the idea of an ancient toad patrolling its same part of the moss for years on end cleaning up the neighbourhood of slugs. "Right what's going on around here then, oi you young feller-me-slug you're knicked,.. slurp. " Every garden should have a toad on slug patrol so why not make a toad home such as a pile of stones or bricks of a sheet of iron and let them clean up your neighbourhood ?Further onto the edge of the Moss I found 2 rather sluggish frogs, also just out of hibernation and probably heading off to the lochan. From the photos you can easily see the difference, the toad with the lumpy (warty ) skin and horizontal pupil (top 2 photos), the frog (bottom 2 photos) with the smooth, damper looking skin and the rounder pupil. And to help in identification the toad often walks but the frog always hops. All across Central Scotland over the next few weeks frogs and toads are on the move, especially on warmer, wet nights so please be careful at night when driving and try to avoid them as they cross the road.
