Loads of Toads! (And Hairy Footed Flower Bees!)

 

Yesterday we decided to go for a walk round Arthur's Seat, hoping to see both Hairy Footed Flower Bees and Common Toads. We were not disappointed! As soon as we got to the top of the steps up to the circular path round Arthur's Seat we saw several male Hairy Footed Flower Bees, busily buzzing around, mostly moving too quickly for our camera. Luckily one did land for long enough for me to get this photo 

 We then carried on to Dunsapie Loch, a small loch, which is generally a good place to see toads. 

 

And there were indeed toads. Loads of toads! We stood watching the Common Toads for a while, many were mating - some on the rocks 

some in the water
 

Some Common Toads were just swimming around, probably looking for a mate

There was a lot of toadspawn in the loch - you can see the strings of toadspawn behind the mating pair in the photo below  

in one area of the loch, we saw a few large clumps of frogspawn, with strings of toadspawn wrapped around it! You can see this in the photo below (the grey clumps are the frogspawn, the black ribbons are the toadspawn). 

There must have been hundreds of Common Toads in the loch! You can get an idea of how crowded the water was in the photo below - click on the photo to get a better view.  

In the area shown in the photo above, we noticed some females were actually laying spawn as we watched. We also saw a couple of toad balls, in which several males pile on top of one female, hoping to get the chance to fertilise her eggs. Despite all the frogspawn, we only saw a couple of Common Frogs. 

You have to be pretty lucky to see the toads gathered together like this. I've never seen so many before. After mating, the toads will disperse to live in damp areas all around Arthur's seat and the surrounding areas. It's nice to see that the countryside rangers have put out some toad ramps so the toads can more easily get onto the pavements on their way to the loch