What is it??
- Thread starter dewi
- Start date
They breed in water but most of the year is spent on 'dry' land.......they are active at the moment fattening up for winter, they can and do travel several hundred metres from water outside of breeding season but do tend to head back to the same site to breed each spring.
DB
DB
Definitely a newt - smooth newt I think but can't be sure the photo is a bit fuzzy. As DB says, as amphibians they do venture away from water but they do tend to spend more of a their time in water than their frog and toad cousins. They're not as agile on land as the toads and frogs and tend to venture out when it is damp.
I have some thick grass growing in the corner and its headed in there... very unlikely anything will get to it in there.
Couldn't believe it when I saw it on the path... my kids were getting ready for bed, when I shouted my wife that "I'd found a lizard" she came through and was looking at it with the kids... they have named it Celestia apparently
Couldn't believe it when I saw it on the path... my kids were getting ready for bed, when I shouted my wife that "I'd found a lizard" she came through and was looking at it with the kids... they have named it Celestia apparently
It's a newt. It'll freeze when if feels threatened and only move on when it's all peaceful again.
They're out and about just now, feeding up before they burrow and overwinter. They don't hibernate as such, they just find somewhere damp that won't freeze. Compost heaps, under leafy piles, in muddy banks, or in gardens under sheds, planters and so on.
They'll roam quite a distance from the pond or burn they use for breeding, but they seem to mostly go back to the same one. They're in the burn along side our garden as well as in every garden pond in the street. I quite like seeing them there, it can be interesting going out with a torch just after dark in late Spring and seeing just how many of them there are in the pond.
These are some of the ones that Himself took of a little one last year.
Globetrotter.uk….those ones of yours are excellent
cheers,
Toddy
They're out and about just now, feeding up before they burrow and overwinter. They don't hibernate as such, they just find somewhere damp that won't freeze. Compost heaps, under leafy piles, in muddy banks, or in gardens under sheds, planters and so on.
They'll roam quite a distance from the pond or burn they use for breeding, but they seem to mostly go back to the same one. They're in the burn along side our garden as well as in every garden pond in the street. I quite like seeing them there, it can be interesting going out with a torch just after dark in late Spring and seeing just how many of them there are in the pond.
These are some of the ones that Himself took of a little one last year.
Globetrotter.uk….those ones of yours are excellent
cheers,
Toddy
Some nice photos there.
i know of a couple of sites where you had a good chance of seeing newts In the pool all year round (not sure if you still can - not as common as they once were). One of these was a shallow 'well' originally for watering livestock. Although it was shallow (so great for looking for all manner of aquatic wildlife) it was fed by a spring so apart from a surface crust, would be frost free throughout even the hardest winter. The well is still there but I haven't visited for a few years - I hope the newts are still there, I had many a happy hour watching them as a youngster.
i know of a couple of sites where you had a good chance of seeing newts In the pool all year round (not sure if you still can - not as common as they once were). One of these was a shallow 'well' originally for watering livestock. Although it was shallow (so great for looking for all manner of aquatic wildlife) it was fed by a spring so apart from a surface crust, would be frost free throughout even the hardest winter. The well is still there but I haven't visited for a few years - I hope the newts are still there, I had many a happy hour watching them as a youngster.
Lucky I didn't pick the little blighter up then... they're protected by law according to the interweb!
I'm beginning to love my garden... seen so much in the past year. Although we do have a rather tame squirrel at the moment who seems to delight in showing its derrière to us daily.
