I really love your tiger feet!

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, 31 March 2022
I really love your tiger feet!
Male Great Crested Newts © Ryan Greaves

By Ryan Greaves

Communities and Wildlife Leader

All newts photographed and handled under license 

We had a wonderful session with my monthly ‘Wildlife Watch’ children’s group at Woods Mill nature reserve last weekend. Around four years ago a historic meadow pond was re-excavated, and last year we did a torch survey which revealed it had been colonised. So licensed newt surveyor and Reserves Ecologist, Glenn Norris and I set a small number of bottle traps and a dewsbury trap overnight to see if they are still present. Excitingly we caught one female and five male Great Crested Newts (with their tiger stripe toes), two male Smooth Newts and a male Palmate Newt.

Male Smooth Newt © Ryan Greaves
Male Smooth Newt © Ryan Greaves

Safe to say I was rather excited, and the children were even more so! I heard so many “ooohs”, “aaaahs” and “whoooos” as they swam around like the mini Godzillas they are! I got the children to each release a newt by hand back to the pond, then we built a hibernacula site nearby for the newts to use in the Winter.

Female Great Crested Newt © Ryan Greaves
Female Great Crested Newt © Ryan Greaves

I find newts to be such charismatic creatures. So beautiful, so streamlined and so regal! Sadly they get a bad rap with some due to their legal protection. Numbers have declined massively over the last 60 years, due to habitat fragmentation, agricultural intensification, water pollution, blocking of migration routes and infilling of ponds. Thankfully we can help them out by digging new ponds, such as my garden pond, which has a thriving population of all three species. Watching them do their fabulous mating displays each evening is an absolute joy.

Building a hibernacula
Newly built hibernacula
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Comments

  • Jill halpin:

    Have crested newts in my pond

    03 Apr 2022 19:20:00

  • jill halpin:

    Have at least a dozen in my wildlife pond in Rye Harbour such joy!

    10 Jul 2022 10:57:00

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