The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Encounters of the toad kind
“CLEARING OUT an overgrown flower-bed prior to planting out flowers for the summer, I saw something which I thought at first was a dead fledgling or perhaps a corm or even just a clod of earth,” writes a Perth reader.
“I flicked it with the edge of my trowel,” he says, “and, to my surprise, the object hopped to one side! It was a very darkcoloured toad, perfectly camouflaged against the soil. It then just sat there and stared at me.
“Not wishing to disturb it further, I went off to do some work in another part of the garden and, when I returned a few minutes later, the toad had gone. I have seen a toad in our garden before; maybe it was the same one.
“A friend who lives in Bridge of Earn left her umbrella outside the other night, forgot about it, then, when she picked it up in the morning, it contained a pool of water – and a toad!
“The incidents reminded me of a disturbing encounter with a toad in Austria when I was a student helping out on a farm in the 1950s. I was working on a sloping field when I felt I was being watched.
“I looked up and there, staring out at me from what seemed the bowels of the earth, were two enormous eyes! I thought the De’il himsel’ had at last come to claim me for his own.
“It took a moment or two for my eyes to adjust to the darkness of the hollow from the bright sunshine on the hillside, then I realised it was only a toad, but it was a real monster, much bigger than our homegrown versions.”