Loads and Loads of Tiny Toads

As I have noted before, I have a fondness for toads, but not like that. At this time of year, newly metamorphosed little toads emerge from a pond on site (in some communities, traffic is redirected when the toadlings put their tadpolish ways behind them and take to the land. The site I typically work at is toad heaven- there is plenty of green space for my batrachian buddies to live their toadly lives.

Last night, I found a half dozen little toads in the stairwell to one of our buildings. While the area is a perfect place for a toad to establish itself, being cool and shady, and full of delicious bugs, it's a dead end for a small toad- they can get down the stairway but they can't get up. I was able to coax the little fellers onto my hand with a gentle finger nudge, and I relocated them to a pachysandra patch. Here's one of my little transportees:

This is not the first time I've had to do a stairwell intervention, and it probably won't be the last.

The post title is the first line of a couplet that I wrote, when I was writing short bits of doggerel in alarming profusion:

Loads and loads of tiny toads,
Live by the sides of country roads.

The same period of bizarre creative ferment also produced the following:

Crepuscular critters give the jitters,
But creatures of night fill me with fright.

It was a passing phase... thankfully!