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let's hear it for smooth newts

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will View Drop Down
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    Posted: 13 Apr 2014 at 8:00pm
I'm guilty of overlooking these entrancing animals, easier to watch than their bigger cousins and more 'aquabatic' underwater, too, with mid-water dancing and snapping up of daphnia etc.  I had never noticed before that males' eyes seem to get more yellow in spring, along with their generally heightened colouration and wavy crests, too.




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Suzy View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Suzy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Apr 2014 at 11:56pm
Lovely!
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GemmaJF View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote GemmaJF Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Apr 2014 at 8:03am
Excellent Will, maybe you should do the newt herpcam!
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will View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote will Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Apr 2014 at 2:46pm
thanks guys; I couldn't manage the technology of a herpcam, though! I always wanted a pond with a (reinforced) glass side to it, a bit like the otter pool at London Zoo, so you could get a newt's eye view of what happens underwater though.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Iulia Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Apr 2014 at 10:29pm
and smooth newts out of the water look like little pickled gherkins Wink
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tom Omlette Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Apr 2014 at 10:35pm
my favourite newts will!

tom
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Liz Heard View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Liz Heard Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Apr 2014 at 6:30pm
Great stuff Will. Good to celebrate them and superb pix - as ever!

Personally, can't choose between the native newt species. Love them all equally. Palmates have a special place for me as they were the first species encountered, GCN the most striking/spectacular and Smooths i admire for their success as a species!
And all are gorgeous!
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will View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote will Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Apr 2014 at 8:42pm
I can't choose between them, myself, Ben - I still remember being tuned in to herps via the smooth newts in the pond as a small boy, then the thrill of my first GCN rising from the depths of an Oxfordshire pond when I was about 12yrs old, then the elusive (for me, coming from London) palmate newt, always associated with exotic places like Cornwall, Dorset and Epping Forest!

anyway, here's another smooth newt waving at the camera for today:


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote GemmaJF Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Apr 2014 at 8:58pm
Likewise to the above, first herp I ever saw was a terrestrial stage smooth newt my Dad found at the base of a wall when gardening. I was just a toddler but I remember it still to this day. He called me over and there was this amazing 'thing' sat in his open palm, and it sparked off my interest in herps there and then.

It was many years (and plenty of newting) later I netted out my first GCN from a pond in Glemsford Suffolk. I thought I had caught the Loch Ness Monster!

Palmate too, many happy days finding hundreds of them in tiny water bodies such as tractor ruts on the holidays to the Surrey heaths as a child gives them just as much appeal. 


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Liz Heard View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Liz Heard Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Apr 2014 at 9:29pm
Originally posted by GemmaJF GemmaJF wrote:

I thought I had caught the Loch Ness Monster!




Yeah, i know exactly what you mean Gemma!
What a moment that was!
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