If you would like to pass on memories of Don, or comment on the site, please contact us by using the button above.

“I think this site is very interesting and is a great thing to do I am sure Don  would be proud” - email from Natalie Bunyan

We have included Don’s notes exactly as he wrote them as reminders for when he was giving slideshows to various bodies. We know that he expanded on these, but we wish to remain true to the original documentation.

Toad

1. Unlike frogs, the toad has a feeble hop and moves in a clumsy walk.  However, it swims well with its hind legs, its forelegs kept to its side.
2. Toads are of a squatter appearance, shorter limbs and drier wart-covered skins. 
3. Although well-able to swim, they spend most of their lives on land, returning only to ponds to breed.
4. By day toads live in holes either natural ones beneath tree roots or in a hedge, or ones which have been scraped into the earth.
5. Hibernate October to March/April.
6. Common toads prefer deep water for spawning.
7. The female lays 7-10 feet long, jelly-like strings of as many as 7,000 black eggs.
8. The normal lifespan of a common toad is up to 10 years.
9. Considered to have good all-round vision.  Underwater the eyes are protected by transparent lids.
10. The toad secretes a poisonous substance in their skin to protect them from many predators.
11. However, birds such as herons and crows disembowel them, and other animals such as the brown rat, skin them.

Lizard

1. Most lizards have 4 limbs, moveable eyelids, an external opening to the ear and a tongue which is sometimes forked.
2. Feed mainly on insects.
3. If a predator seizes its tail then the lizard will sever it.
4. Agile and can climb fairly well.
5. Only 3 native species in Britain: Common lizard, sand lizard, and slow worm.
    

Earthworm

1. In a single body this creature combines both sexes.
2. Earthworms are omnivorous.
3. Since Romans built their villas on English earth, worms have buried their pavements one to two feet deep and every grain of that soil has passed through worms bodies.
4. On poor pastures in Kent where much chalk had been swallowed a day's castings weighed little more than 1oz.
5. The larger the castings, the poorer the soil.
6. From some soils as much as 7 ozs have been measured from a single burrow in a day.
7. From the surface of a yard square as much as 4lbs 3 ozs.
8. Worms do not work during the dry weather in summer or in winter frosts. 
9. If we assume that they work for but half of the year, and this is too low an estimate, even then they void more than 8 tons per acre, more than 14 tons per acre has been recorded.
10. Worms have no eyes but their skin is demonstratively sensitive since they withdraw hurriedly from any sudden light.
11. The earth builder, earth restorer and earth fertiliser is the common earthworm.
12. There may be a million or more worms to the acre of soil.
13. They dislike dry weather and may go down as far as 5 feet into the earth, coil up there and wait for the rains to come.
14. If you cut a worm in two with a spade, it dies, but if only one or two segments at either end is cut off the work can grow these again.
15. Their bodies are marked with rings or segments.
16. If you pass an earthworm backwards through your fingers, you can feel that it has bristles, 4 pairs on each segment of its body.
17. These help to fix one part of it to the ground whilst moving the other part forward.
18. Feeds by swallowing earth, digesting dead plant and animal matter in it and passing the rest out in wormcasts.