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COUNTRYSIDE NEWS October 2016 Wildlife Around and About East Lothian
Throughout late September and October us rangers will be involved in assorted attempts at grassland management. The aim is to remove much of the standing vegetation so that it doesn’t die back over winter and rot down into the soil. This reduces the nutrient levels in the soil which, to cut a long story short, should allow wildflowers to flourish long-term (at least that’s the theory). In the past we’ve done this by strimming the area and then raking and lifting the cuttings, but recently we’ve taken to using scythes. Scythes have several advantages over strimmers - they’re good exercise, they’re not as noisy/smelly/fuel consuming, and you can pretend to be the Grim Reaper. Most importantly, they are much more wildlife-friendly. After a recent scything session we found several voles, frogs and toads in the cut area – it’s a fairly safe bet that these would not have survived had we been strimming. The frogs and toads that we found will not be out and about for much longer, as both will soon be looking for damp, dark corners in which to spend the winter. Strictly speaking they don’t hibernate, but they will become largely inactive – although frogs and toads will take advantage of warm spells to emerge and forage for insects, worms and slugs. Being amphibians, adult frogs and toads can survive in and out of water, but spend most of the year on dry land, indeed they only really need water to breed in and to live in as tadpoles. The commonest amphibians we’re likely to come across in East Lothian are the aptly named Common frog and Common toad. Common frogs come in a variety of colours ranging from grey, through greens to a sort of yellowy-brown. They have a dark stripe around their eyes and dark blotches scattered irregularly over their Common frog body. The skin of the common frog is smooth and moist to the touch although it’s not a good idea to handle frogs too much, as their skin is sensitive and easily damaged. Frogs have long back legs and will often spring away when threatened. Common toads are superficially similar to frogs, but there are several Common toad differences to distinguish them. Their colouration is usually a greybrown and the skin is dry and “warty”. This latter fact probably accounts for the old wives’ tale about catching warts from toads (with apologies to any old wives reading this). Toads don’t jump very much, and will tend to crawl away when threatened, or even just sit there. This may be related to the fact that they have very few predators and therefore don’t really need to escape rapidly. Instead they rely on their unpalatable skin, and rather unpleasant toxins exuded from glands on their back, to put off most threats (although hedgehogs will happily chomp on them). October may well be your last chance to see these lovely amphibians before they disappear for the winter and you probably won’t even need to take a scythe with you. Forthcoming events: Monday 17th Oct 13.30-15.30: Fungi Foray at John Muir Country Park (no booking needed). Sunday 30th Oct: An autumnal hike through Gifford and Morham (cost £4 and booking required). More info at http://eastlothian.bookinglive.com/ranger-service-annual-programme