A lovely Sunday morning

Island Stories #42: A Sunday morning walk in nature before the rain set in (and a video).

Most of you, the readers of this newsletter, were probably still asleep on the other side of the Atlantic while I started my Sunday with a walk in the dunes. Not many people were outside; I didn't see a single car driving, but I passed a few horse riders, cyclists, and runners before entering the dunes. 

Haamstede Castle this morning

I didn't see any of the ponies, Scottish highland cattle, or deer. Instead, the wildlife encounters of this morning were insects and a tiny natterjack toad (Epidalea calamita). For the few Dutch-speaking subscribers: we call this species a 'rugstreeppad,' which makes sense since this toad ('pad') has a recognizable yellow line ('streep') down the middle of its back ('rug'). So you learned three Dutch words today!

I looked the species up on the internet and learned that natterjacks have relatively short legs, which gives them a distinctive gait, contrasting with the hopping movement of many other toad species. In addition, natterjacks have a thunderous and distinctive mating call amplified by the single vocal sac found under the male's chin. 

A natterjack toad that I saw this morning

Natterjacks live for up to 15 years and feed mainly on insects, especially beetles. They move around open terrain with sparse vegetation at night, and you can often find their tracks in loose sand. They move considerable distances each night, enabling the species to colonize new habitats very quickly.

In the Netherlands, these 'back-stripe-toads' seem to enjoy the same regions that I like best in my country: the dunes, near the rivers, and the polders in North and South Holland, Flevoland, and Zeeland. We also find them on nearly all of the Wadden Islands in the north and areas described by the Dutch as 'higher sandy soils.' 

Don't take 'higher' too literally when used by the Dutch; we consider 30 meters above sea lever as relatively high, and we are likely the only country in the world that proudly calls a tiny hill of fewer than 60 meters above sea level a 'berg' (mountain). The Holterberg is 59.5 meters (note that we added fifty centimeters to impress you even more); it is a significant tourist attraction with hotels and restaurants. I remember learning about the Holterberg at school during geography lessons, even though it is not the highest point in the Netherlands. 

That's it for this morning, here is the (1:23 minutes) video. I wish you all a beautiful Sunday.

If you know someone who loves to read about toads on Sunday morning, wants to learn three words of Dutch, and who cares about the detail of those 50 centimeters on the height of beautiful but entirely irrelevant Dutch mountain, why not give them a subscription to The Planet? It makes a nice birthday present.

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Notes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natterjack_toad

http://www.soortenbank.nl/soorten.php?soortengroep=reptielen_en_amfibieen&id=20&menuentry=soorten