Door to Nature

American Toad. Photo by Roy Lukes.

It is in the spring of the year that it’s very difficult to associate a downright ugly, cold-blooded, venomous American Toad with one of the most splendid, high-pitched, long sustained musical trills pouring forth from the throat of a wild creature. Few people, at first guess, would match this two-to-three-inch warty brown creature with that long sustained, pleasant and dreamy aria, upwards of 30 seconds long. When we were boys back in the late 1930s and would go out to the country with our folks to visit Uncle Walt and Aunt Mandy Barr, about the time the Cowslips were blooming, we’d often hear the American Toads singing off in the distance. Never once did we associate this song with a toad.

If you can hum and whistle at the same time (naturally with lips open and puckered), then you can make much the same musical tone that a toad makes. The trill rate of the toad’s tremulous whistle is about 30 per second. It is the male toad that makes this sound, with his throat puffed out to a nearly globular shape, forming a vocal sac. The sound is produced by drawing air in at the nostrils and passing it back and forth from lungs to mouth over its vocal mechanism, somewhat like our vocal chords, while the inflated throat sac acts as a resonator. Time a toad’s song next spring. You’ll be surprised at how many seconds it can last.

It is easy to confuse toads and frogs, yet it is simple to tell them apart. For one thing a toad’s skin is dry and warty; a frog is wet, smooth and slippery. Also, toads hop while frogs leap. And don’t ever be tricked into believing that you will get warts if you touch a toad. This is absolutely false. The scientific name of the American Toad is Bufo americanus (BOO-fo a-mare-i-CAY-nus), Bufo being Latin for toad.

My friend, Nick Anderson, and I had a pleasant reward a few weeks ago while working to eradicate Phragmites, the aggressive giant reed, at the Toft Point State Natural Area. Suddenly we came upon one of the largest American Toads either of us had ever seen, quietly nestled on some horizontal aquatic plant stems about six inches above the water. Our movements and my picture taking just inches from the placid amphibian didn’t appear to bother it, nor did it make even the slightest move to escape our presence.

American Toad. Photo by Roy Lukes.

The reason that toads are very likely the most frequently seen of all amphibians in Door County is that they so often appear in grasslands, residential yards, people’s gardens, in their flower beds or next to the foundation of their homes waiting patiently for insects to come to them, especially during nighttime hours. A favorite site for these totally harmless creatures is near one’s front door where a light naturally attracts insects, some which fall to the ground and become easy targets for the slow-moving toads. One of our outdoor water faucets is close to our front entrance and it is there that we enjoyed a resident toad for several summers. Seldom while watering the begonias near the front door did I fail to see our wonderful cold-blooded warty little friend.

Toads need insects, moisture and places to remain cool, soil into which they can burrow, and shallow water in which to lay their eggs during the breeding season. Should your garden or flowerbeds become too hot during the day, then a toad will dig backwards into the soil or crawl beneath some dense foliage in order to maintain its proper cool body temperature. Come late fall they may burrow into the soil as deeply as three or more feet in order to winter safely below the frost line. It is said that, with good food, a clean suitable environment plus some luck, toads can live to be 30 years old.

Colors of this highly beneficial animal can include brick-red, brown, olive and a dull yellow. The males, smaller than the females, will show a darker throat and folds of skin which expand to form their bubble-like resonating song chamber. Viewed head-on, this toad has very pronounced cranial crests, two of the most beautiful and prominent eyes in the Animal Kingdom, and hundreds of various size warts. The largest, its paratoid warts, sit high on the animal’s head behind the eyes. Shakespeare wrote, “Sweet are the uses of adversity, which like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.”

American Toad. Photo by Roy Lukes.

Most of its warts are capable of secreting a highly distasteful alkaloid poison, used by this very slow-moving creature as a very effective means of defense. Seldom will a dog bite into a toad a second time, and in case you have handled a toad, it’s best not to rub your eyes or get any of this poison into your mouth.

Our home is situated at least two miles from any body of water, Hibbards Creek to the east and Mud Lake to the southwest, indicating that the toads we see on our property have had to travel cross-country to get here. Come the year and time for them to breed, they’ll have to return to either of these bodies of water in which the eggs will be laid and tadpoles developed for 6-8 weeks before forming lungs and becoming creatures of dry land. By the way, should you come across large schools of very tiny dark tadpoles in late spring or early summer, they are Eastern Toad tadpoles, the only tadpoles in Wisconsin that form schools. Charlotte and I, along with the students in our nature classes, have witnessed enormous such schools while exploring along the sandy shore at Jackson Harbor on Washington Island.

Regardless of the terrible-tasting poison which toads can emit, they do have plenty of natural enemies. Eastern Garter and Northern Water Snakes eat them with impunity, along with hawks, skunks, owls, crows and grackles. Raccoons have learned to eat them starting at the belly and avoiding especially the large poison glands on the toad’s upper body surface. Wild Turkeys are known to catch and eat them, as well as Wood Frogs and salamanders, as these amphibians move from their wintering sites overland to spring ponds to breed.

How we look forward to May when the male toads’ soothing, far reaching, echoing trills begin to carry through the sweet vernal air. Bufo, you’re the greatest!