Natterjack Toads are very rare in the UK but breed in pools at the side of the road in Portugal

Natterjacks like temporary pools and puddles

Natterjack Toad (Photo by Bernard DUPONT)

The Natterjack Toad (Epidalea calamita) is one of the rarest amphibians in the UK and only found in several scattered colonies in coastal areas in England, Scotland and one in Wales where it has been reintroduced. It is the only native species of toad in Ireland where it lives in a few locations. In many parts of Europe, however, it is far more widely distributed, and in Portugal it even breeds in temporary pools and puddles at the side of the road near where I live.

Roadside pool (Photo by Steve Andrews)

Pool with tadpoles (Photo by Steve Andrews)

Unlike the Common Toad (Bufo bufo), which likes large ponds and lakes, the Natterjack uses pools that are likely to dry up later in the year. This is a great danger for its tadpoles because the water may all evaporate before they have grown big enough to become toadlets and to leave. Many tadpoles perish when the pools become no more than cracked mud. Lucky ones will be in pools with deeper water that takes longer before it has all gone. There is an advantage to this seemingly reckless breeding behaviour though, because the pools the Natterjack chooses have no predators, such as newts and dragonfly nymphs in them. The Natterjack actually favours pools that do not even have any vegetation, and are just a few inches of water covering sand or mud. Somehow they manage to find enough to eat in these conditions.

Natterjack Toad Tadpoles (Photo by Steve Andrews)

The tadpoles are much smaller than Common Toad tadpoles too and they can complete their metamorphosis in as short a time as six weeks. It is a race against time when warm weather dries up the water they depend on. Last year, where I live, this species was unlucky because drought set in with hot sunny weather and all the pools dried up totally. I had moved some of the tadpoles to pools with more water but even my effort to help them was in vain because none of tadpoles had even developed their back legs when all the water was evaporated in the heat. This year, I am hoping that some, at least, will survive. We have had a lot or rain earlier on and the temporary pools where I find tadpoles of this species currently still have plenty of water, although it is starting to go down. In the UK, the Natterjack is mainly found in coastal locations where temporary ponds form in dunes and sandy areas by the sea, on the continent and Portugal, however, it is also found inland. The male Natterjack attracts others of his kind to a suitable stretch of water with a loud and rasping call but only does this at night. By day, these toads hide in burrows in the sand, and they favour sandy locations, such as dunes and heathland.

The Natterjack can be recognised because it has a yellow stripe down the middle of its back. It cannot jump well and tends to walk fast, which has led to it also being known as the “Running Toad.” When I was a boy I always dreamed of finding a Natterjack Toad but never did. It was very rare all those years ago too. I am amazed to find this very rare amphibian breeding in muddy pools by a main road near where I live.

Searching for Birthwort with the Spanish Festoon Butterfly

Searching for Birthwort with the Spanish Festoon Butterfly

Spanish Festoon (Photo: Steve Andrews)

The Spanish Festoon (Zerynthia rumina) is a very pretty butterfly in the Papilionidae or Swallowtail butterfly family. It has strikingly patterned wings of yellow, red and dark brown with zig-zag markings on its hindwings. It is found in Spain, Portugal, North Africa and southern France. I have seen the butterflies in scrubland and pine and oak forest near where I live, but until today I have never seen any of the Birthwort species (Aristolochia spp) this butterfly uses as food-plants for their caterpillars.

I have lived in Quinta do Conde in Portugal for the last five years but have never managed to find any type of Birthwort growing here so it has been a real mystery for me, as to how these butterflies survive here. Today after a lot of searching, I discovered a clump of Round-leaved Birthwort (A. rotunda) growing amongst trees and heather at the top of a bank.

Spanish Festoon habitat (Photo: Steve Andrews)

I had to climb up to find it, and this is why I had never seen it before, although I often walk through this part of the woodland. A female Spanish Festoon has to find this plant or other Birthwort species on which to lay her eggs. There are no other options. The distribution of the food-plants, as is the case with most butterflies and moths, is one of the main factors responsible for the distribution of these insects. In fact, if you find a colony of a particular butterfly or moth, you can be fairly certain that the plants the larvae of that specific species need will be growing nearby. 

Round-leaved Birthwort (Photo: Steve Andrews)

The Spanish Festoon is flying very early this year. Most sources say that it can be seen from April onward, although the excellent Collins Butterfly Guide, which says this butterfly flies from late March to May, also points out that it has been recorded in February. With the Climate Crisis making the weather a lot warmer, and leading to droughts and the very real danger of forest fires in Portugal, butterflies and other species of flora and fauna are directly affected by changes in the weather. 

The Birthwort species are poisonous plants that are dangerous for humans to consume, because poisoning from these plants can lead to kidney failure. These plants were once used to cause uterine contractions, hence the name “birthwort,” but their usage as a medicinal herb has mainly been abandoned due to the dangers of the toxins these plants contain. For the caterpillars of the Spanish Festoon, as is the case with the larvae of many butterflies that have poisonous food-plants, the poisons in the plant become a form of defence for the caterpillars. Because they become toxic too, any predators that try eating them are likely to get very sick. The European Birthwort (A. clematitis) is the species I was expecting to find, so I was pleasantly surprised to find the Round-leaved Birthwort was the local species. Birthworts tend to be straggling plants that need other vegetation or support to climb over. The Aristolochia species have unusual tube-shaped or pipe-shaped flowers, and one species, the Dutchman’s Pipe, which has very large and attractive blooms, is grown for ornamental purposes.

The Angel of Death

The Angel of Death

Angel of Death (Azrael) by Evelyn De Morgan (Public Domain)

It was in the not too distant future when the nightmare scenario devastated the western world, and led to the final collapse of life as we know it. A 100% lethal mutated virus had been spawned in the labs of insane scientists. There was no known cure for the Angel of Death, which spread by contact, as well as via the air and in water supplies. An even more insane subversive group within the ranks of the the evil germ-warfare-mongers had infiltrated to the highest echelons above top secret, and in a final doomsday effort had unleashed the killer virus upon an unsuspecting world. Death came to everyone infected with it within weeks, and there were no recorded cases of survival. 

Throughout the entire civilised world, throughout all the teeming cities, and even to the smaller towns and villages of the whole globe, the silence of the fatal germ had come. Only humans were infected, so once again the world of animals and plants had a chance, for it appeared that the reign of mankind was finally over for good.
Ten years had elapsed and the passage of time had brought many changes. In once Great Britain, the cities with all their accompanying industrial and urban sprawl had reverted back to a more natural environment that was gradually and not so gradually displacing what humans had created. Rooftop gardens of small trees, brambles, briars, and assorted weeds and grasses greeted the sky, and the hungry flocks of sparrows, starlings, pigeons and finches. Barn owls bred again in large numbers and circled the dark night skies, seeking out their choice from the teeming rodent hordes that had multiplied without check feeding on the vast quantities of stored foods in shops and warehouses.
Branches of trees poked skywards through crumbling and ruined buildings. Roads, streets, pedestrian precincts, shopping malls, and even the once mighty motorways lay cracked by the ever-advancing frontline troops of armies of the vegetable kingdom.  Grass grew waist-high in fields, parks and open spaces, and masses of wildflowers adorned these meadows providing a feast for the butterflies, bees and other pollinators. Mongrel dogs prowled and hunted in packs. Hawks and other birds of prey had a field day with all the vast numbers of small birds, and rats and mice, now to be hunted.
The seas and lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, and other waterways and wetlands had once again come into their own and teamed with fish and other aquatic life, which in turn supported huge breeding colonies of waders, herons, ducks, and other water birds. Massive patches of brambles, nettles, briars and assorted scrub in sprawling growth reclaimed the once cultivated and civilized land. Broken human skeletons lay covered or partially exposed to the elements, or rotting away in the empty rooms where they fell. Forests too were starting to reclaim the land in an effort to return to days gone by.  Foreign flora and fauna vied with natives for space in the battle for survival under the laws of Mother Nature.
In the rest of the world, the picture was much the same, and the land so devastated by mankind’s short and tyrannical reign of destruction was being fast taken back by natural forces as the balance became again restored to the Earth.
The end of mankind had not, however, arrived for small pockets of survivors continued to live in their ancient tribal ways in the mountains and jungles of South America, Asia, and deep in the rainforests of Africa. These tribes had survived, because although they were aware of the civilised world they had chosen to live in isolation from it, shunning all contact, and so preserving their ancient culture and traditions.
So the planet was once more open for colonization as those tribal peoples grew in numbers, and an almost Garden of Eden type situation presented itself with the ruined technological cities and factories of destruction still there to maybe be discovered like the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 
Only the tribal elders really understood the dangers that lay ahead, but as to whether they were able to prevent enquiring minds from prying into these secrets only time would tell. If the circle was to run its course, several thousand years more had to elapse, but for the time being all was well upon the Garden of Earth.

Footnote: I wrote this depressing story many years ago but had not done anything with it until now. I am hoping it remains just a story! With the Corona Virus or Covid 19 virus in the news, it seemed a good time to publish it though.

Where Does All The Plastic Go? Gets Media Coverage

My protest song about plastic pollution entitled Where Does All The Plastic Go? has had some great media coverage, but it needs a lot more. The song has been featured in a national newspaper in Portugal and in a recent book from Italy. It would be wonderful if the British mainstream media would report on it too.

The Portugal News

Last September, The Portugal News included an article about my song after I was interviewed by Kim Schiffmann, who is one of the newspaper’s writers. There was a photo of me on the front page too and a caption which said: “Singing Against Pollution p11.” The Portugal News is a national newspaper in the English language and read by many an expat.

My song also received airplay in Portugal on Roque Duarte’s Sonic Fine Cut show on esradio.pt (Eclectic Sounds Radio) and Nação Sónica. The video for Where Does All The Plastic Go? had been made in Portugal by Filipe Rafael, and the song is included in my album Songs of The Now and Then, which is available as an environmentally packaged CD with a recycled egg box CD tray, or as a digital release on bandcamp. On Facebook, the video has had over 19,000 views. 

Where Does All The Plastic Go? is also available for streaming and downloads at Reverb Nation. 

SPAM: Stop Plastica A Mare and Ocean Aid

Meanwhile in Italy, Where Does All The Plastic Go? Has received some wonderful publicity thanks to Filippo Solibello, who is a top radio presenter and author there. He has included an entire chapter about me and my song in his book SPAM Stop Plastic A Mare, which he has been touring extensively to promote. He even got a copy of his book to Pope Francis.

Filippo has been showing the video of my song to audiences in Italy and also spreading word about my idea for an Ocean Aid concert to raise awareness on an international level, and as a fund-raiser for charitable organisations that are working to save the oceans and marine life in them. I think some very famous names would want to be involved if a massive concert could be organised, like Band Aid and Live Aid but this time it would be Ocean Aid. Many stars from the world of music, such as Ed Sheeran, Mick Jagger, Kanye West, Cerys Matthews, Chrissie Hynde and Brian May, have spoken out about plastic pollution but I think I am leading the way when it comes to songs on the subject. 

Music Interview Magazine

I am very grateful to Music Interview Magazine for publishing an in depth interview with me in which I explain about how I became alarmed about the ongoing threat from plastic. I mention David de Rothschild and how he sailed The Plastiki across the Pacific Ocean back in 2010. This was when I started following his work as an environmentalist and learned how bad the plastic pollution problem really is. Sadly, in the years that have gone by since then the size of the problem has multiplied on a mind-boggling scale, and we really do need to find ways of stopping it getting any worse and of getting as much of the plastic that is out there in the oceans out of them. Plastic is now everywhere. As micro-plastics it is in the air, soil and water. The environment worldwide has been contaminated by plastic pollution and plastic has entered the food chain which goes right up to us. This is why I sing: “Plastic kills the turtles and is eaten by the fish, plastic’s in the food chain and the dinner on your dish!” Please help me spread the word about my song and idea for an Ocean Aid concert. Plastic pollution affects everybody!

My Protest Songs and Songs About the Environment

With the ongoing Climate Crisis and serious threat of extinction for so many species I have been writing and performing protests songs and songs that draw attention to the environment and to dangers to the wildlife of the world. I have four songs like this on my recent album Songs of the Now and Then, which is released in CD format and as a digital release on bandcamp, and was produced by Jayce Lewis. The CD is environmentally friendly because the tray and packaging is made from recycled eggbox. But now let’s take a look at the songs!

Where Does All The Plastic Go?

Where Does All The Plastic Go? Started life as a poem but I decided to make a song out of it because no one else in the world of music was singing about this problem that affects us all. There is a video made by Filipe Rafael and filmed in Portugal, and this video has had over 19,200 views on Facebook.

My song has been featured in The Portugal News and I was featured on the front page with a caption: “Singing Against Pollution P11.” It has also been featured in a book by Italian radio host and author Filippo Solibello.

In SPAM Stop Plastic A Mare, the author has given a 4-page chapter to it entitled Where Does All The Plastic Go? Filippo has been promoting his book and my song all over Italy and managed to get a copy to Pope Francis. He is also spreading the word about my idea for an Ocean Aid concert, like Band Aid and Live Aid but this time to raise awareness of the crisis at sea caused by plastic pollution , as well as overfishing and other threats to life in the oceans.

I am hoping that this concert will happen and will attract not only big sponsors but very big name bands and singers, who will be willing to take part. Money raised can be distributed to charities helping the oceans. Which ones is yet to be decided on but there are many. Streaming and free downloads of Where Does All The Plastic Go? are available at Reverb Nation.

The Nightingale

The Nightingale, is a song that not only talks about the threat of habitat destruction that is causing a serious decline in this iconic songbird , but talks about the problems caused by development schemes all over the UK and elsewhere. Land-grabs of green belt and forested areas are causing an incredible amount of destruction of the homes of a vast number of species of wildlife. It makes reference too, to the ongoing felling of trees in cities and towns. The song starts with the lyrics: “You’ll never hear a nightingale if their homes are no longer there, destroyed by a developer who doesn’t really care, despite their claims otherwise about biodiversity, ripped up hedges and bulldozed land’s the reality I see.” The Nightingale features vocals from well-known Welsh poet Mab Jones on the choruses. This song is very topical due to all the protests that continue in the UK, where people are trying their best to stop the destruction of the forests and countryside. As I write, there are ongoing demonstrations to Stop HS2, but many more protests are taking place to save the wild places of Britain.

Citizen of Earth

Citizen Of Earth is actually an old song of mine that has been brought up to date with a new recording. I have been aware of the problems the world faces for a long time but everything has got so much worse. This is why I am making protest songs my focus. Citizen of Earth makes reference to the cult TV series The Prisoner, which starred Patrick McGoohan as Number Six. It talks about social unrest and about how people are trapped in a system that is similar in many ways to the Roman Empire. “The Roman Empire was much like today, Patricians and Plebeians and social decay, until the fires burned it all away, the ghost of Nero’s still fiddling. Citizen of Earth has been played on Roque Duarte’s show on the radio in Portugal and has inspired two very different videos. One was made by Ludgero Corvo and the other is an animation by Simon C. Watch them both and see which one you like best!

 

Butterfly In My Beard

Butterfly In My Beard is the most lighthearted of these songs, though it still raises awareness about wildlife, in this case it is talking about butterflies. I rear these insects and the verses of my song refer to real-life incidents. I have had Monarch butterflies on my beard. The second verse goes: “They called me the Bugman on the news one time…. they called me the Bugman on the news, a Hissing Cockroach on my head got plenty of views…” These lyrics are about the time I was in the South Wales Echo in an article about how I kept exotic insects. 

When I perform the song live I get the audience to join in by “making butterflies” with their linked outstretched hands and by giving me a “yeah” at the right places. I am hoping to audition this song in front of the judges of Britain’s Got Talent.

Butterfly In My Beard at CamonesCinebar in Lisbon

Grass growing after the rain is a help to some butterfly species

After the rains in Portugal

New grass blades - Photo: Steve Andrews

Drought-stricken Portugal has at last had the autumn rains arrive. The land is swiftly going green again. One type of plant that quickly recovers and shoots from dormant seeds is any one of most species of grass. This is wonderful news for many butterfly species that need grass for their caterpillars.

Speckled Wood - Photo: Steve Andrews

The Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria)  and Meadow Brown (Maniola jurtina) are two widely distributed butterflies that have larvae that feed on grass. Until recently female butterflies were presented with a major problem because most grass had shrivelled and died in the months of hot sunshine and little or no rain. Much of the countryside had become brown and dusty, and what vegetation that survived was tinder dry and in poor condition. However, millions of seeds have been left to germinate after being activated by the next showers of rain. It always amazes me to see how quickly the greenery returns to barren and dried up land that looks more like a desert. Not just grass but countless weeds and wildflowers swiftly cover the ground with their first shoots and seedling leaves. I delight in seeing so much going green again.

Brown ground going green again - Photo: Steve Andrews

Other butterflies

The Small Copper (Lycaena phlaeas) is another butterfly that was sure to have problems in a drought and that I had seen here. Weeks ago there were many specimens of this pretty little butterfly flying on the scrubland and along paths through the woodland. The vegetation under the trees were all dead and brown and I couldn’t find any leaves of the food-plants this butterfly needs. Species of Sorrel and Dock (Rumex spp.) are the plants the female Small Copper must find to lay her eggs on. Sadly, where I live, as far as I could see, none of them were still growing and what was left was either underground or as seeds. I really don’t know what this butterfly does in such conditions and there are no Small Coppers still about here to take advantage of any new growth. If they have somehow survived I will find out next year. 

Small Copper - Photo: Steve Andrews

Two more butterflies already returning to the countryside here are Clouded Yellow (Colias croceus) and Small White (Pieris rapae). The former needs species of clovers and trefoils, and the latter looks for plants in the Cabbage family but can also use species of Mustard that grow wild. There should be plenty of food-plants for these butterflies in a while, once the seedlings have germinated and started growing again. This is what is happening here now. All plants that have been laying dormant underground as rootstocks or as seeds on the surface are being activated by the so welcome rains. It is wonderful news too, knowing that more rain is forecast for the rest of the week ahead. We need it!

Because butterfly females lay hundreds of eggs it gives them a far better chance of survival but it is still a mystery to me, as to how they get through periods when there are no green plants of the types they need to be found.

The Clouded Yellow

How a Supermarket Shrub Border Could Be A Butterfly Garden

My idea for a butterfly garden at the local supermarket

The shrub border and ground overlooking the supermarket

Every time I go to my nearest Continente supermarket branch here in Quinta do Conde, Portugal, I spend some time looking at the wildlife and plants growing in on a bank that overlooks the store and is planted in parts as a shrub border. Clumps of Lantana when in bloom attract butterflies, bees and Hummingbird Hawk-moths. In my mind it could be transformed easily into a butterfly garden. 

Lantana

But let’s take a look at it as it is now. A lot of the ground gets very dry in hot weather but in wet weather it is covered in weeds. Wall Lizards have formed colonies and can often be seen basking on the concrete around fence posts by the pavement and along poles of wood used to terrace the ground. There is a Weeping Willow that is just about managing to hold its own and is a favourite place for flocks of House Sparrows to perch. Saplings of what looks like some type of Maple have been planted but out of four only one has survived the drought.

Sapling dying from lack of water

It remains to be seen whether the others will sprout now the rains have returned. Millions of ants live in nests in the ground and can often be seen making long trails from one part to another. But it is the butterflies that visit that have got me thinking that with a little bit of work this area could be made into a place where caterpillars could live and complete their transformations into chrysalis and then adult butterflies.The other day I was thinking about this and how all you would need would be a lot of clumps of Rue for the Swallowtails and Milkweed for Monarchs and that both these butterflies would do as well there as they do in the garden where I live. Amazingly, with these thoughts in my head, I was delighted to see a male Monarch and a Swallowtail feeding on nectar from the Lantana bushes. There was also a Small White and Painted Lady doing likewise. Sadly I had no camera with me at the time so couldn’t get photos of any of the butterflies.The Monarch had presumably flown all the way from the house where I live, which is about 15 minutes walk away. When I release butterflies I always wonder where they go. I know a few females always return to lay their eggs on plants I am growing for them but have no way of knowing what happens to the others. I also have no way of knowing if there are any more gardens in this town where Milkweed is grown, though I know there is plenty of Rue because it can be seen in many front gardens.

Swallowtails

I have noted that the local Swallowtails are using the Rue in the gardens in preference to Fennel growing wild in the area. It is obvious why this is. Fennel, although an alternative food-plant for Swallowtail caterpillars, does not do well in the long periods of drought we have been having and it is often without any leaves. As I said earlier, Hummingbird Hawk-moths also feed at times from the Lantanas, though I haven’t seen many this year. It seems clear to me that butterflies and moths do a lot of flying about looking for mates and for food, for themselves and, if they are females, for their caterpillars. If a female Swallowtail had spied the Lantana flowers she might well have stopped to feed, and if she had seen a clump of Rue, she would probably have laid some eggs there. Monarch, Painted Lady, Small White and any other species females would do likewise if the plants their larvae need were growing on the supermarket's land. 

Two female Monarchs on Zinnias in my front garden

There is plenty of ground where other plants could be grown. The Rue would look after itself and is very drought resistant. Just a few clumps of this aromatic herb would result in more Swallowtails there. I could more or less guarantee it. I think it would be good for the public image of the supermarket, if it became known as a store that was helping the butterflies. And this could be done quite easily even though the ground I am talking about is next to a road and carpark. I have recently seen the news that the city of Hull in the UK has become a “Butterfly City,” because it has made the effort to plant many Buckthorns to feed the caterpillars of Brimstone butterflies. This pretty yellow butterfly is limited in its distribution by the availability of its food-plants, which are the Buckthorn and Alder Buckthorn. If Hull can do this so could any other city or town. I hope the idea catches on! Likewise my proposal for a butterfly garden alongside a supermarket could be extended much further. Any businesses or public buildings with land attached to them could have butterfly gardens. Parks and gardens could be improved by simply planting more plants and shrubs that butterflies and moths need. Tragically, the numbers of butterflies and moths worldwide are declining fast. I think this could be reversed if more plants were grown that these winged wonders need. I realise most people would just see some waste ground next to the supermarket and might well think my idea is crazy but that doesn't stop me believing what I have outlined here could work. If can turn out generation after generation of butterflies from a small patch of front garden just think what I could do with all that land! Imagine that: a supermarket with its own butterfly garden! Now how can I make my dream a reality?

Full view of the land overlooking the Continente supermarket