There was something strange down there in the water.
I was walking the GR 5 from Sant Celoni to Montseny village, and had just spotted a grape hyacinth. There’d been violets and speedwell along the way, but this was the first real spring bloom of the year. I went up to have a look at the raceme of tightly clustered flowers, ranging from dark purple at the bottom with delicate white frills, to bright lilac on top, where they are sterile.
The grape hyacinth was growing just by a concrete irrigation pond, full of murky green water. Something in the depths grabbed my attention.
It was a lump of toads, warty, saggy and stretched into a kind of ball. I wasn’t even sure they were alive until a hind leg kicked and the ball drifted to a new spot.
After watching a while, I realised a gargantuan struggle was taking place. At the bottom of the pile was an enormous mottled female, and clinging to her were at least four males, each a different colour - ranging from mustard yellow to dark grey. Each was intent on levering off his rivals and manoeuvring into a better position. Webbed feet were rammed into faces. Heads were squashed under limbs. The shape of the ball evolved and floated about at the bottom of the pond.
Intense competition like this can cause female toads to drown: they are bigger than the males but not strong enough to shrug off so many persistent suitors. It struck me as a system gone askew, with an inexplicable imbalance between the sexes. But Mel on the forum explained that males are usually the first to arrive at the spawning sites, rearing to go. So the first females to show up are outnumbered and put under enormous pressure.
An unattached male swam to the corner of the pond, iridescent orange-red eyes visible above the surface - a common toad’s most attractive feature - and began calling to summon more females. It was an urgent but gentle sound - common toads don’t have vocal sacs - similar to that of a coot.
At the other end of the pond were strings of small black eggs, freshly laid.
It had turned into a spring walk. Turo de l’Home’s snowcap was melting fast, and there was a roar in the beech woods, as fierce white torrents gushed downhill. Butterflies were out in the sun: Brimstone, Cleopatra and Peacock. At the end, when you have to run to catch the bus in Montseny village, there was a grassy bank covered in white violets.
Montseny, Plants, amphibians | Tags: common toad mating ball, common toads mating underwater, early spring in Mediterranean, grape hyacinth, hikes near Barcelona, muscari neglectum, strings of common toad eggs, walking in Montseny, walking in the Mediterranean, walking the gr 5 in Montseny, white violets|
Sometimes on a June evening Barcelona skies fall strangely silent because of an absence of swifts. They go elsewhere for richer pickings, returning to the concrete sprawl at night. Standing on the Collserola ridge at dusk, I watched hundreds pour down into the city.
I’d started walking late in the afternoon, skirting the small Vallvidrera reservoir, where families picnicked in the shade and dogs nosed among the algae, silencing the legions of frogs. Climbing a steep path, where a meagre stream trickles down, I found Rampion Bellflowers and tiny tangy wild strawberries, which no one else had thought to pick. Iberian Water Frogs (Pelophylax perezi) crouched invisibly in the grass around a small pool. Every time I moved, more would leap into the water and vanish, till it must’ve got quite crowded down there in the mud.
Vallvidrera is posh, but some of the houses near the path were built when this was no man’s land, and the crowing of cockerels mingles with Golden oriole song. A beautiful Comma butterfly (Polygonia c-album) was perched on a leaf, jagged as a jigsaw piece. Perhaps it was the same one I’d seen a few days before, puddling on the wet stones, and giving me a glimpse of the neat white mark on its underwing to which it owes its name.
As grass goes to seed, the slopes behind Sant Pere Martir are turning pale gold, the colour of summer. The bright yellow flowers of broom have nearly gone, and now it’s time for Scabious (Scabiosa atropurpurea). Its frothy purple-pink blooms are everywhere, on waist-high stems, leaves hardly to be seen, and usually with a butterfly attached.
Down in the valley bottom, rabbits rustled among the new crop of fennel that’s already taller than me. An insistent screeching made me think a new exotic bird had arrived in Collserola. Something large and yellow moved in a pine tree - a Golden oriole. Until then I’d only known their catchy whistles, which starlings love to mimic.
Nearly at the top of the ridge, as the sun dropped lower, I stopped to admire the spectacular Illyrian thistles (Onopordum illyricum) that have shot up like spiny candelabra. Hummingbird Hawk moths were zipping among the electric purple flower heads. I’d seen a man come armed with gloves, cut some selected stems and strip them of thorns with a knife. If the Devil grows them in his garden - in Spanish they’re called Cardo del Demonio - it’s because both stems and flower heads are edible.
Beyond the thistles a flock of bee eaters were on a late foraging swoop. The swifts were beginning to return. I noticed a Woodchat shrike (Lanius senator) on a dried up branch of old broom, its chestnut crown lowered as it dealt with its prey. It flew off with something pale in its bill, having left an egg shell spiked on a twig.
It was delicious to lie down on the track and feel the day’s heat stored there, in contrast with the cool evening air, and listen to the sound of swifts searing past. A rabbit popped out of the grass, and promptly jumped back again. A boar emerged, huffed indignantly and kicked up the dust.
Darkness was falling and the swifts were still swarming along the length of the ridge.
Collserola: Guided Walks
Barcelona, Birds, Collserola, amphibians, butterflies | Tags: Barcelona in June, Barcelona walks, Cardo del Demonio, Comma butterfly, Golden oriol, Iberian Water Frog, Illyrian thistle, Marbled white, Mediterranean flora, Polygonia c-album, Scabiosa atropurpurea, Scabious, thistles, vallvidrera, woodchat shrike|
