Ben Dolphin: Is it silly to get attached to a toad?

I have a new routine at home for an evening, which slots in nicely after Channel 4 News and the 8pm mug of tea.

At about 8:30pm, I get up from the sofa, switch the porch and outside lights on, open the front door and look down at our doorstep.

Sometimes the step is empty but, more times than not, it’s occupied by a solitary sentinel. I get down low on the porch floor so that I’m eye to eye with it.

It sits motionless, stoic, the outer edges of its mouth turned downwards in a permanent frown. Its copper eyes peer into the black, the only sign of life its tiny wee nostrils twitching with the breeze.

Yep, I have a toad at my abode! And Toad sits right outside my abode almost every night.

Toads are better than frogs

I’d be delighted with just about any wild creature choosing to do this, but toads are one of my favourite animals. As a nature nut, I know that charisma and relatability aren’t good reasons to consciously favour one species over another, but toads are charismatic in a way that their froggy cousins can’t match.

The slit-like pupils in those beautiful, rusty eyes make toads look like they’re squinting with the effort of deep thought. They seem serious, pensive, grumpy, even, as though they’re trying to multiply 139 by 278. Conversely, the huge, bulging round eyes of frogs give them a strange, thousand-yard stare that looks right through me. Sorry, frogs, but I’m an emotional being!

Yay! Came face to face with my first toad of the year up here today. And the pond was all a-chirping 🙂 pic.twitter.com/LiDrI4If74

— Ben Dolphin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿❄️🇺🇦 (@CountrysideBen) April 10, 2020

By day, toads generally rest in sheltered, damp places. They emerge at night to hunt for slugs, snails, worms and whatnot, although “hunt” suggests a far more energetic undertaking than is necessarily the case.

Slow creatures who walk rather than hop, toads favour a stealthy “sit and wait” approach to their food. Sadly, this is often done on roads and paths. Night-time strolls during summer can, therefore, be unbearably stressful if you don’t have a torch.

Has Toad chosen me?

I also have enormous respect for something that moves so slowly and yet travels so far. Toads famously return to their same ancestral ponds to spawn and, while some won’t range more than a couple of hundred metres from those ponds, others will venture one to two kilometres or more. How long must that take?

Overall, it’s an endearing mix – one that many other folk clearly relate to. The numerous mundane photos I’ve shared on my blog of Toad, quietly sitting on its step, have been ridiculously popular.

Toad is very cute, I admit, but people do love it when wild animals come into the orbit of our homes and display habitual behaviour, or behave in a way they perceive to be unusual.

There’s an undeniable comfort in discovering and observing animal routines in and around your home

I don’t actually know whether toads are habitual to the point of returning to the same hunting spot every night, but I assume that’s what Toad is doing. Certainly, given the profusion of spiders and slugs that find their way under the front door and into our porch, the step is doubtless an excellent and reliable all-you-can-eat buffet at which to bulk up for the long winter slumber.

That’s the sensible, ecological explanation, of course. But, as humans, it’s both easy and enticing for us to attach whatever egocentric explanation we like to it. Namely, Toad has CHOSEN to visit me because… well… it’s me, and I’m good with animals.

Whatever the reason, there’s an undeniable comfort in discovering and observing animal routines in and around your home. It’s satisfying to know that the place you live in is hospitable, and there’s simple pleasure to be found in their clockwork company.

I’m optimistic about a spring return

I admit, therefore, I’ve felt rather bereft of late when I’ve gone to check the door of an evening and Toad isn’t there. I look left and right in the grass, vainly hoping it will come crawling out for no reason other than it’s me standing at the door.

Ach, perhaps it just has somewhere better to be? It probably has several choice hunting locations. Or, perhaps it’s fed up of having the toad paparazzi snapping photos every night?

Human sentimentality then seizes control, and I worry that Toad might have been picked off by some other, unseen creature.

I haven’t seen Toad for a week or so now, which isn’t surprising, given the nights are persistently in lower single digits and we’ve had the first frosts here in Braemar. My silent sentinel has, no doubt, been feeling the need to slumber.

Hopefully, that’s what’s happened. If so, there’s a good chance of seeing Toad in the spring, because toads are surprisingly long-lived. Five, seven, even 10 years isn’t unusual in the wild. In captivity, they can reach 40. I’m optimistic.

Ooh, it’s 8:25pm!

Nope, nothing at the door. Just a cold, empty step.

Erm… is it silly to miss a toad?

Ben Dolphin is an outdoors enthusiast, countryside ranger and former president of Ramblers Scotland