They are out there - Newts !

It’s the 24^th January and the evening temperature in my back garden tonight (at 20.30) is 11c. This is madness, for this is the sort of average daytime temperature which you usually get in early March and only four nights ago it was freezing!

So what do you do when it’s this mild in the evening and you are a wildlife watcher? You go armed with a torch and look for newts in your pond …. and yes I found them J. Two smooth newts (Lissotriton vulgaris), resting on aquatic vegetation in my small wildlife pond, shone into view as my torchlight scanned the surface of the pond. With a flick of their tails they quickly ‘wiggle dived’ out of sight, but I just stood and waited for them to return to the surface again, this time armed with my camera ready to click away.

It’s not easy to photograph small moving animals in the dark, with the basic camera I have, but I got  a few shots in which the animals were vaguely in focus.

But here is a better quality photo of a male (spotty) and female smooth newts, from the net.

I am in western half of town, in the middle of a large housing estate built between 1959 -1960, but I have had smooth newts in my pond since1997. 

My ordinary pond (24 Jan 2016 at 20.30). Lots of vegetation and importantly for a wildlife pond, no fish ! Rocks and shrubs surround the pond, plus my neighbors fence, which the newts can easily crawl under and shelter in the shrubs the other side of the fence. Newt heaven ! 

The pond was dug in 1993 and at first it attracted lots and lots of frogs and each spring it overflowed with frog spawn. But before long all this spawn and tadpoles initially attracted the smooth newts from the surrounding gardens to feed on this readily available feast and since the late 1990’s the frog population has dwindled, whilst the newts have flourished. They survive feeding mainly on aquatic and terrestrial invertebrates, but every winter they slow down & rest in my garden, under log piles, stones, flowerpots and at the bottom of the pond.

They will mate later in the spring and then spend the summer hunting in the shady parts of mine and my neighbour’s gardens, before making their way back to pond and surrounding area later this year, around October / November time.

Smooth newts are very common in Paddock Wood, the damp landscape, which readily forms small ponds, is ideal for them. I have mentioned in an earlier post, that all the current planning proposals include building many more drainage / attenuation  ponds, to assist with flood prevention in the town. Smooth newts, plus other amphibian’s numbers should rise, as these potential new breeding ponds will be readily colonized. Modern housing estates also tend to include quite a bit of hedging and shrubs in their landscape features, all of which provide damp, sheltered places for feeding and resting, if you are a newt.

So I predict a great future for newts and other amphibians in Paddock Wood. We will have to see if this occurs, over the next twenty five years or so J.