Lissotriton vulgaris – Grantham Ecology

2017 Retrospective – The Rest!

December 31, 2017Grantham Ecology1 Comment

I like to take the opportunity which the end of the year presents to look back over what I’ve seen and encountered. Some fall nicely into groups so do check out trees, wildflowers, butterflies, bees and invertebrates on their own posts!

The remainder are individual species or places which don’t form a group, but which are an important part of the year just passed. I hope you enjoy!

Easegill Bat Surveys

I was lucky to be invited along to a hibernation check in the caves in Easegill, Cumbria by a friend in the bat group there. We found a number of hibernating myotis and brown long-eared bats in the various cave systems, along with the tissue moths, herald moths and cave spiders which use the same habitats over winter. It was a great day out in some stunning scenery, and the opportunity to do a spot of caving whilst searching for wildlife was a real treat! You can read more, and watch a short compilation video, on this post from January 2017.

Snowy walk along Stanage Edge

It takes around an hour and a half for us to get to some of the most stunning walks in the Peak District; a bit of a trek but always worth the visit especially if there’s snow to line the fields and de-mark the landscape with its series of hedges and stone walls. I love too how the hills in the far distance can give an illusion of mountains when they become snow-covered!

Smooth newt – Lissotriton vulgaris

I couldn’t resist this photograph when we were undertaking translocations at the beginning of the year. The legislative driver behind the translocation is the great crested newt, but we take the opportunity to move any species we encounter to a place of safety. With the juveniles, such as this little smooth newt, you need to keep a sharp eye to make sure you spot them all!

Common frog – Rana temporaria

Spring is one of the most rewarding times to have a garden pond – when the croaking begins and the surface is a mass of calling frogs. This was taken on a cool March day when the frogs had decided that spring had sprung! In this photo, I tried to capture the turbulence of the water which these amorous amphibians bring to a placid garden pond.

Slow worm – Anguis fragilis

We encountered this slow worm under a piece of corrugated metal in the woods near Woodhall Spa in the early summertime. There had been a rainshower which caught us out and the slow worms too had taken shelter. As the sun came out and the corrugated metal began to warm, the chances of catching one reduced significantly as they are anything but slow when they want to be! These reptiles are in fact legless lizards rather than snakes. Their habit of sheltering beneath these artificial refugia forms the basis of the reptile survey technique we use in ecological consultancy to find out whether reptiles are present on a particular site.

Dandelion seedhead before the full moon

The was taken at Muston Meadows at midnight when the moon was full and I couldn’t resist a walk. The dandelion seedheads glowed white against the dark grass but I was struggling to capture this in a photograph – then I thought this might make an interesting angle!

Shropshire Hills

We spent a few days over the May bank holiday in Ireland for a wedding, coming back via Anglesey and spending a night in Shropshire on our way back east. We walked over the Long Mynd at dusk, heading back towards our campsite, and this was the view as we began to descend.

Church of Saint Mary, Whitby

A weekend camping near Robin Hood’s Bay in the summer found us in Whitby before walking back along the coast. This is the taken at the Church of Saint Mary – set above the town and referenced in Dracula. I was struck with this view of the tombstones dark against the long meadow grasses and wished this was a more common sight – cemeteries and churchyards can be beautiful places full of life after death, if they’re managed sensitively for wildlife rather than manicured as bowling greens!

Curbar Edge, Derbyshire

We had a survey site which saw me out in the Peak District until 7pm one evening in August – after which I took the opportunity to see the heather and take a walk along Curbar Edge at sunset. This is the view out across from the Edge as the sun was sinking low on the horizon.

Vancouver Island

The following are a few photographs from Vancouver Island this year – we encountered some spectacular wildlife and were amazed by the scenery. You can read more in my blog posts here, but below are a few highlights.

Anna’s Hummingbird in Victoria

American red squirrel at Long Beach, Tofino

Black squirrel in Stanley Park, Vancouver

Orca’s from Victoria

Grey heron reflection against the vending machines on the marina in Vancouver

Slow worm – Anguis fragilis

This tiny slow worm was one of this year’s juveniles – we were surveying a site in Somerset and this was one of seven young ones which appeared under a single survey mat where the sun warmed a bank at the edge of the site. When I picked it up, it wrapped itself around my finger but was so small that the nose and tail didn’t quite meet!

Sunrise on the day of Storm Ophelia

This photograph was taken of the countryside in Warwickshire on the day Storm Ophelia swept across the UK. At that time, I didn’t realise what was causing the effect but was just taken by the colours – it turned out that the day was to be filled with the pseudo-apocolyptic light brought on by the Sahara sands.

Cattle at Muston Meadows

Muston Meadows is an ancient haymeadow and a National Nature Reserve in Leicestershire. The site is managed with a late-summer hay cut and is grazed in the winter by cattle. I visited one frosty morning in December and they were delighted to have a visitor, charging over before stopping and checking me out. They then accompanied me all the way off the site so perhaps their role is security as well as site management!

Icicles under Burbage Bridge

On a snowy cold day in December, I took a walk through the white from the Longshaw Estate in Derbyshire, through woodland and across tors and encountering these beautiful icicles hanging beneath the bridge which takes the road over Burbage Brook.

Clematis seedhead – Clematis vitalba

These are also commonly known as old man’s beard and it’s easy to see why! I came across these seedheads in a hedgerow on a survey site in Bedfordshire where the wind had left them with this shape over time – I liked the feeling of motion which they held even when still. It seemed appropriate for seeds which are waiting for their time to take to the wind and begin a new plant elsewhere in the landscape.

Teasel seedheads – Dipsacus fullonum

On the same site as the clematis above, I also found an amazing stand of teasel seedheads. These striking plants are excellent for wildlife – in the summer they provide an abundance of nectar for pollinators such as bees and butterflies, and the winter seedheads will play host to flocks of goldfinches foraging for the seeds.

This newt has a crest, but is it great?

May 11, 2014April 5, 2016Grantham EcologyLeave a comment

Great crested newts are our largest newt in the UK but their common name can be a little misleading – I have met many people who assume any newt with a crest is a great crested newt. This is not true – the smooth newt also has a crest but is a very different creature. The other old English name for great crested newt is the warty newt and this is a much better diagnostic tool for telling between the two species – the great crested newt has rough, bumpy skin whilst the smooth newt is as smooth as its name suggests. The great crested is also a much larger beast but the juveniles are very similar in size to a smooth newt and so it is important to know the characteristic differences to tell between the two at different life stages.

There is a third species – the palmate newt – which is similar to (although slightly smaller than) the smooth newt but the palmate has a smooth pink or yellow chin whilst the smooth newt has a blotchy patterned throat.

With a little practise, the smooth and the great crested newts are very easy to tell apart both in the hand and in the pond. On recent newt surveys, we came across males of both species and I have put together the two images below to show the key ID features for our two most frequently encountered newts.

Know your newts!

March 29, 2012May 17, 2012Grantham EcologyLeave a comment

A bit of background about newts

There are three species of newt native to the UK and they will be heading back to garden ponds around now, if they’re not already there!

Adult newts actually spend most of their time out of ponds, although never far away. They forage in undergrowth where they eat a diet mainly consisting of invertebrates including worms and slugs making them another useful addition to the pest-control team. They also eat smaller aquatic invertebrates when in the ponds, such as water lice and insect larvae.

They return to the ponds to breed from around March – May, when the temperatures warm up crucially at night when they are most active. Here the males and females meet up and breed, then the female lays eggs which she wraps up individually in aquatic leaves, unlike frogs which create the familiar clusters of spawn, or toads which lay their eggs in strings. If you look carefully at water plants with small leaves, such as water crowfoot, you might see the leaves curled over and stuck down but don’t open them out as the eggs will be very susceptible to damage or predation. Adding aquatic plants to your pond is an excellent way to improve the suitability for newts of all species!

The eggs grow and hatch into efts around 2-3 weeks later. They have frilly gills which allow them to breathe underwater – it is another 10 weeks or so before they lose these and complete their development into minature air-breathing adults. It will take around 3 years before the juveniles reach sexual maturity.

In the meantime, the adults leave the ponds again in June/July, although they may return to forage. They are most active at night and in the daytime they hide under suitable refugia which keep them cool and damp, such as beneath stones or logs.

In the winter, when the temperatures drop, they find more permanent places to hibernate. They will remain inactive until the spring comes and the temperatures warm up once more. At this point, they will make their way back to the ponds to reproduce again.

We certainly get smooth newts in Grantham – we have a pair in our garden pond each spring – and the larger great crested newt has been recorded in Manthorpe and Muston (according the NBM gateway) and may well be present much closer to town. The palmate newt, our third species, is recorded in Nottingham and down the A1 at Market Overton but there are no records for Grantham.

Below is a brief description of each species to help you identify any you might come across:

Great-crested newt (Triturus cristatus)

This is our largest newt species and grows to a size of 15cm. Only the males have the crest and even then only during the breeding season. They also have a bright yellow/orange and black patterened belly which is like a fingerprint in that it can be used to tell individuals apart.

Despite the name, the crest is not the way to tell these apart from the smooth newts as they also have both the crest and the fiery patterned belly. Once you have seen a few, especially side by side, you will probably not mix them up again as the great crested is a clearly more susbtantial specimen with even juveniles being larger than adult smooth newts. However, the best diagnostic is the texture of the skin – an older English name, less commonly used now, is the warty newt. The skin is not covered with warts, clearly, but the dimpled texture gives it a rough look – see photo below.

Males in breeding condition also have a streak of white along their tail which, as well as the crests, helps distinguish them from the females.

The great crested newt is protected in the UK under the Habitats Regulations – this is European level legislation to conserve endangered species making it illegal to kill, injure or capture them; disturb them in any way; damage or destroy their habitat or possess them or sell or trade them in any way.

The photograph below was taken during some survey work I have been doing recently which involved moving the newts from one location to another – I do have a great crested newt handling licence to allow me to do this!

Smooth newt (Lissotriton vulgaris)

The smooth newt is smaller (around 10cm long at most) than the great crested and has smooth skin. Like the great crested, the males have a crest along their back during the breeding season and both sexes have the patterned belly. This is the species which you are most likely to find in your pond – they often swim up to the surface to take a gulp of air during the day, making a distinctive pop noise but a flash of a tail retreating to the depths is often all you see when you try to spot them.

The male has spots almost like a leopard along his upper half whilst the female is usually a more drab by contrast. Their colour varies between individuals – the male is darker and the female is often an olive green/brown.

They also have spots on the underside of their chin – this is one of the key ways in which you can distinguish them from the palmate newt which is really rather similar in other respects.

This photograph was taken of a smooth newt on the same site as the great crested newt pictured above – this is only a juvenile but is similar to an adult female in many respects. For a nice photograph of an adult male, see here.

Palmate newt (Lissotriton helveticus)

This species is actually not encountered all that often. It is the smallest of all – rarely over 6cm in length. The males have a crest and both sexes have the flame patterned belly. The skin is smooth which, along with the size, distinguishes it from the great crested newt. The best way to tell the palmate newt from the smooth is to look for the patterning under the chin – the palmate newt does not have spots like the smooth newt, rather it is an uniform yellow or pink.

The palmate newt seems to prefer shallow pools in acid conditions – it is frequently found in heathland, moorland and bog habitats rather than garden ponds where most people will encounter newts.

The site I was surveying does not have a palmate population unfortunately, so I do not have a photograph to provide as comparison! However, more info on palmates (including photos) can be found here!

Recording newts

There are several organisations who would be very interested to receive your newt records. The Newt Hunt project is set up by Amphibian and Reptile Conservation along with Amphibian and Reptile Groups (ARG) UK who will use the information for creating a map of newts in gardens. This will help their conservation by giving a better picture of their distribution around the UK and make sure that their presence is known in an area.

They also have an useful page on identification, along with photos of key diagnostic features.