so I was standing in the back garden having a quiet smoke at 11 pm just before I was planning to go to bed.
as I stood there I noticed a long thin thing on the floor and wondered what it was!
I suspected it was either a small stick or a cat ■■■■!!
so I decided to nudge it with the toe of my shoe and I got the shock of my life when the thing curled up into an orange-spotted something??
so on closer inspection and with a certain amount of patience I eventually realized, once it had uncurled itself that it was a Newt!
sadly i didn’t get a picture of it as by the time I had gone in the house and back it had, probably very wisely in light of the fact that there is a hungry hedgehog who lives in our garden, decided to ■■■■■■ off!
i thought i would make a quick post about it as it is very very rare that you come across newts these days. especially newts that are out of water and that you can, without handling or disturbing, get a good look at!
For a small animal, the males are quite impressive in their spring colours, like little dragons.
I found this female and a smaller friend at the front of our house a few weeks ago, although hadn’t seen one for a long time before that. I moved them to a safer place in undergrowth near our pond. (Technically illegal as I don’t have a newt handling licence, but very much for their own good.)
they actually spend most of their life out of the water, returning to ponds to breed, early life stages will stay in the pond
Males have the crest broken between the body and the tail, unlike common newt males where the crest is unbroken.
If black and feeling kind of rough (another name for them is the warty newt) with the underside broken orange stripes then it’s a GCN
Protection in England has changed a bit due to district level licensing, which seeks to protect the metapopulation and habitat Vs individual newts, been a few years since I worked on them in England so not fully up on the district level licensing, if you wnt to check Protecting great crested newts - Natural England
Agree with all of the above - I have the common variety, which also have an orange underbelly in the breeding season(males only I think). I am aware whenever I move a plant pot, stone. damp cover, undergrowth etc, then think NEWT as they do spend most of their life out of the pond, and I don’t want to injure them… I’m lucky to have toads too - though they don’t use my pond for breeding!
If it was a Great Crested Newt - fab, I’d love them in my garden. They’re very protected in law as others have indicated - I don’t think you’re allowed to touch / move them if you don’t have a licence unless they’re in danger. I have had Common Newts in ponds over the years but never Great Crested. I have just dug a pond at my current house in the hope of attracting more toads / frogs and newts.
Well done! Don’t put fish in your pond - they eat tadpoles and efts.
Lots of hornwort, and marginals are good for the young to hide in - plants balance the water too.
Thanks for the reply Elaine - I haven’t put any fish in my new pond for the reasons you mentioned - I’ll have a look at adding some hornwort and marginals as suggested as it’s all a bit bare / new at the the moment. I had a fairly big fish free pond at my last house and lots of toads, some frogs (not as many frogs as toads) and quite a lot of newts. I also had lots of newts at my house before that in what was a fairly small pond. All were Common Newts, so nothing as fantastic as a Great Crested. I have had a single frog so far in the new pond, plus I’ve had Common Newts and quite a few toads in the garden prior to the pond being dug - so hopefully they’ll move in eventually. Thanks again - Julian
I hope your pond really flourishes, you obviously know what you’re doing - great stuff. Mine is pre formed and fairly small, but full of aquatic life, invertebrates, (including several kinds of pond snail, flatworms, some waterfleas, fr. water shrimp, and hoglice - the marginals - yellow flag, rush and pendulous sedge attract several species of damsel fly and dragonfly that spend their larval stages in there) water lilies and frogbit provide shade and hiding places for the amphibians - my pond is a source of real pleasure and is also a valuable eco system.
Good luck!
we had newts in the pond at my mum & dad’s house.
but they didn’t get there by accident!!
I was working up in south wales and I went to get some water out of a hydrant and when I opened the hydrant I saw 5 newts in there.
it was just a brick-lined hole with nothing in it but a hydrant connection.
they had black tops and yellow bellies with dinosaur-like crests!
so my workmate got them out of the hole and we put them in a big bucket with some water, stones, and vegetation and brought them home with us at the end of the week and I put them in my pond!
the little fellows survived their ordeal of traveling 250 miles and seemed to rather like our pond as from them on and over the years we would catch the occassional sighting of them.
