April Fools

Today's volunteer job was to collect in and clean all the birdfeeders from around the reserve. It is not one of the most loved jobs and the volunteers were hoping it was an April fool!

With the sun on our backs and with many hands making light work, we had completed the job in no time. Once re-assembled the feeders were hung in the trees to dry.

There were a lot of them!

In the afternoon we made the most of such a lovely day and started work on painting the way marker posts and the fence by the Heathland. A small team also filled in all the pot holes down the track.

Once we'd downed tools for the day most people went down to the scrapes where there are now hundreds of toads mating and spawning. Many of the volunteers said they had never seen such numbers of toads all in one place; it's definitely worth a visit if you can get to Foxglove this week.

As you can see, the toad spawn is laid in long thin lines. In the picture below you can see the comparison between the toad and frog spawn.

Somewhere in here is a poor female who is surrounded by the smaller male toads!

Thank you to everyone for their help today, and thanks to Hutch for the use of his photos.