Newts

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 In my enthusiasm to spot frogspawn arriving I have been gazing into the  pond more attentively this last week. One day I spotted a newt and several pond dipping excursions later I have been able to capture some newts.


There are three species of newt native to the UK. The rarest and largest is the great crested newt and this is definitely not one of those. The remaining species are the smooth (or common) newt and the palmate newt. I confess that I have so far been struggling to decide which species I have. I have only managed to catch only two adults . My research suggests that it is very difficult to differentiate between female smooth newts and female palmate newts so perhaps I have some excuse!
Apparently palmate newts are the most common in Cumbria but are not found in limestone areas like ours so perhaps these are smooth newts, but I expected to find spotting under the jaw if was a smooth newt. Perhaps I have both species??AAArgh!! Perhaps I will have to wait until I can capture some more before I can decide! I will keep trying.  In the meantime I am opting for palmate newt because of the lack of spots under the jaws. If somebody out there knows better please let me know.The following photographs are of the underside of the newt (they aren't dead honest!)



I was also pleased to find a tadpole and a young newt still developing that still has external gills. The animals are called "efts" at this stage of their development. (A useful word for a Scrabble player!)


I only realised today that you can tell a newt tadpole from a frog tadpole because the newt tadpole front legs develop before the back legs (its the other way round with frogs).

Newts spend the majority of their life on dry land. They are nocturnal and usually hide in burrows or in old walls etc during the day. Newts return to the water to breed and have three months or so of aquatic life a year. The eggs are laid individually and attached to, and folded into vegetation.
In the meantime I will keep my eyes open for frogspawn!

Diary Notes
Overnight cameras captured a polecat and a lot of rabbits. Its warming up a little with overnight temps 7C. I noticed some bat activity towards dusk (6.50pm) and using the gismo that attaches to my phone I recorded a sonograph suggesting that I was seeing both pipistrelle and soprano pipistrelle which is what I expect to see here. This iwas the first significant bat activity this year. I am showing a screen  capture from my phone to show the sonograph.


We heard a lot of curlews calling today, and the tawny owls were very vocal when I was out looking for the bats this evening.







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