Easter Egg Hunt

Just got back in after a fascinating evening surveying for newts and while my dinner cooks I thought I could share the experience.

I was a complete novice when it comes to surveying for newts at night. All you really need is a good torch, wellies, a net and ideally an expert. If the site is known for great crested newts, then you also need a licence from Natural England (or their equivalent). To get a licence you need some survey experience, so you have to go out with someone has one already and learn the “ins and outs”, which is what I did tonight.

Newts are largely nocturnal and don’t spend as much time in the water as other UK amphibians. Of course, water is pretty essential for breeding and as we are at the start of the breeding season, this a good time to start looking.

There are three species of UK newts - palmate, smooth (common) and great crested (gc). They can all co-exist in one pond, so we were looking for all of them.

Basically you walk slowly around the outside of the pond on the land (watching where you tread) and shine your torch into the water. Breeding activity tends to take place in the shallower margins so this is a simple and effective technique.

We were looking for the adults but also any evidence of egg laying. Newts lay their eggs singly on aquatic plants, usually bending the leaf over for protection from predation. The eggs of the gc newt are bright white in colour so stand out more in torchlight and we saw some almost straight away. Interestingly, the available vegetation did not appear ideal and the leaf folding had not been very successful but did make egg hunting more straightforward.

Close to the eggs was a female gc newt, actually in the process of egg laying. Amazing! I feel really priviledged to have this kind of experience and grateful that a bit of extra effort after a long day at work can be greatly rewarded. Wildlife watching in the dark is always special and some of my best memories come from experiences like this. I will never tire of doing this kind of thing.

Photographing the newts is also illegal and can only take place under licence and when it is incidental to a survey, so again I feel very fortunate to be able to capture these images.

  The cold weather didn’t seem to be having a great impact and we went on to see quite a few more newts. Unfortunately it was mainly glimpses as the non-egg laying newts were a lot less static. The two other species are a lot less smaller and hard to tell apart from a quick glimpse. We did manage to net a beautifully patterened smooth newt (along with a diving beetle larvae and a water slater!) which gave us the chance of a closer look.

Right at the end of the survey, which involves walking the entire perimeter of the pond and recording all sightings and egg laying activity we spotted a male gc newt which we were also able to net, to learn about identification and handling.

The male that we had caught was apparently only a medium size specimen but it seemed easily twice the size of the smooth newt. It was also in prime breeding condition, with an impressive crest (this is reabsorbed into the body outside the breeding season). Again, a really beautiful animal, especially when you turn it over and look at its belly and throat markings! In fact each newt has completely unique belly markings and in years past, photocopying was used as a recording method.  

Well, I could go on typing all night (or morning -oops!) but suffice to say it was really special and a worthwhile skill to learn. If you are interested in doing something similar, (before you rush out with your torch!) it may be worth finding out if there is an amphibian and reptile recording group (ARG) in your county or area to learn from the experts like I did.