This was to be a diary entry on the glorious sonorous nightingales and heavy perfume of hawthorn blossom in Glapthorn Cowpastures, but, though marvellous, the experience was trumped by a dinky amphibian.
On the southern periphery of Oundle town a generic 1960s estate, detached houses and bungalows, spreads a short distance along the slope that edges the river Nene floodplain. This unremarkable estate is home to an unusual creature. Soft musical pings emanating in little clusters from next to the houses are the first indication of something peculiar.
The call is sometimes described as an electronic beep, but to me it has a fluty element and a hint of a bell chime. It is repeated at a slow rhythm, and as each animal produces a slightly different note, the largest two clusters are quite musical, though somewhat avant garde.
I had hoped to hear the calls, but the creator is a renowned recluse. Two or three are calling from around the bottom a brace of wheelie bins, they are close enough for me to shine my torch hopefully, but all that happens is silence. I conclude they must be under the bins or hiding in cracks at the base of the wall.
Then a particularly clear call is emitted from a paved driveway, and there it is, small enough to fit in a matchbox, a mottled-grey midwife toad. To crown it all, he is exhibiting the origin of his name, a bundle of white eggs wrapped around his hind legs, like a twist of pearls. He will carefully tend the eggs, keeping them damp and immersing them in a pond when ready to hatch. In fact the name is a misnomer, it is only the male that carries eggs, so midhusband toad would have been more appropriate.
Originally imported into Bedford in French pot plants in 1906, midwife toads were soon released into other towns by two young brothers, Percy and, in the case of Oundle, Robert Brocklehurst. A hundred years later they are still here, have displayed no bad habits, and I’m charmed.
Twitter: @MattEAShardlow
