Toads end up calling, in the warm August rain

It's been an exciting week for us. Since our last update, most of the country has experienced some heavy downpours. Whilst this rain has caused havoc and localised flooding in some areas, it has also led to a male midwife toads calling like crazy. Now to the uninitiated, their call can sound like a smoke alarm with a dying battery. The repetitive beep sound is enough for most to not realise it is organic in origin. With this in mind, it seems a number of people have found themselves online looking for a solution to the problem. Given the number of emails I have recently received, a number of people have been unaware that their garden is home to these curious little toads!

 

An updated map as of the 20th August 2020 (I apologise that the compression slaughters the quality)

We're slowly managing to get around to surveying the remaining known midwife toad populations, thanks to help from Natural England and the local residents. This week the population in High Wycombe has been swabbed, as has the one in Luton. The genetic representation from the various populations in the southern half of the toad's range in England is slowly getting there. Interestingly enough, with the recent wet weather we've been able to confirm a new population in Kettering and also that the Wandsworth population in central London isn't extinct as we previously thought. We've only got about a month left until midwife toads start to wind down for the winter so fingers crossed we can make the most if it.

 

An extremely dark individual from the High Wycombe population (photo credit: Dave Clemens)

Partly due to my poor geography of the north of England, the Misterton population is now correctly labelled. This is an area where our efforts are going to focus next, along with the new populations we've recently confirmed. It seems that midwife toads are a lot more widely distributed that we originally thought and there are bound to be more populations out there waiting to be discovered. To help facilitate the identification of midwife toads in resident's gardens throughout the country, I'm soon going to release some guidance on my personal website. I can imagine that if you don't know what you're listening to, not knowing can be quite unnerving. Steady progress is being made, long may it shall continue!