Newts in my pond!

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Last July I dug a pond in my back garden - I created a thread in Homes, Gardens & DIY about it.

I've been amazed at how quickly the wildlife moved in, and I've just spotted a newt, which I'm very excited about. In fact, I spotted two of them, so babies are not impossible.

Crap picture alert:



So is there anything I should do to encourage them and help any "newtpoles" to survive? My main concern is that the pond is still young, and the food chain might not be rich and diverse enough to support higher creatures yet. Is it possible to feed them?

[so called]

We had the same and so used to throw in fish pellets occasionally.
They thrived.
Oh, and plants.

[Japveesix]

My only suggestion would be to provide habitat for them outside of the pond. Try squeezing a few small log piles into your borders (out of sight if you like) as this will give them omehweree to live and hunt when not in the water, which is a lot of the time.

And don't put fish in. Though they can survive in ponds with fish they do compete and fish will eat the eggs.

I cleaned out my folks pond for them last year and found there were probably 20 newts in it which was nice as they almost certainly descended from a handful myself and friend put in there about 15 years ago when we were teenagers. I always sought to make their garden as wildlife friendly as possible and it has a number of rough, unmanaged areas and logs piles etc. Seems to work.

[otolith]

The juveniles look like small adults, but have feathery external gills. They are predators of small invertebrates. They are mostly keyed to movement, so are unlikely to respond to dead food.

[Mr GrimNasty]

Adult newts will eat anything in and out the water from slugs to insects to frog spawn to dead fish, live fish if they can catch a tiddler, they'll even chew lumps off big dead animals once the carcass has opened and started to rot. They certainly eat fish food.

This is from personal observation.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

I will get some sinking catfish pellets and put a very small number in every few days then. I assume they won't need much food, because the water is still bluddy cold!

My plan, if I got tadpoles, was to occasionally snip a slug in half and throw it in. Might try that for the newts and their young. Must be careful to avoid too much pollution though.

Will be interesting to see if I get frog spawn as well, or whether mine will be a "newts only" pond. I understand that adult newts will eat the occasional frog tadpole.

[Mr GrimNasty]

There is no point feeding them, they would manage if you vanished!

They normally 'hibernate'/feed away from the pond and mainly return to breed. They actually have surprisingly dry skin when you find them away from the pond.

I have an absolute plague - they are a bit of a nuisance now, they've filled nature's void left by the wiped out frogs.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

A much better picture... And now I'm not so sure of my identification: smooth newt or palmate?




I've ordered 50 red ramshorn snails off eBay, which hopefully will enhance the ecosystem and provide some food for the newts. Apparently they don't eat live plants, just dead vegetation...

Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Saturday 7th March 17:50

[anonymous-user]

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:

A much better picture... And now I'm not so sure of my identification: smooth newt or palmate?




I've ordered 50 red ramshorn snails off eBay, which hopefully will enhance the ecosystem and provide some food for the newts. Apparently they don't eat love plants, just dead vegetation...

Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Saturday 7th March 08:50

Looks more like a young male Great Crested

[Cliftonite]

Some years ago, we had a house with a reasonable (8' x 13' x 3') pond. I knew we had a few newts as there were generally one or two visible and swimming.

When cleaning out the pond (i.e. everything removed, cleaned, replaced), we found 52 newts!!! (And significantly more fish than we thought we had!)

The newts didn't appreciate the refurbished pond, however, and seem to have disappeared for over a year before re-establishing themselves!

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

I've only seen two newts at a time, but they are quite elusive so I can well imagine there may be more in there.

I have tried emailing the "amphibian officer" of Surrey Amphibian & Reptile Group, to see which type of newt he thinks it is.

[Yertis]

MonkeyMatt said:

ooks more like a young male Great Crested

Great crested are big (can't tell scale from that pic) and much darker in colour. I'd say that was a smooth.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

The snails have arrived (by snail mail, obviously), so I've released those, and ive been feeding a pinch of sinking fish food granules every day.

And this evening I saw three newts simultaneously, which greatly increases the chances of having a mixture of males and females so they can get it ON.

And quite a big frog too. It's amphibian anarchy in there!

[otolith]

You should be able to tell the mature males from females - one of each:

[Nightmare]

Yertis said:

Great crested are big (can't tell scale from that pic) and much darker in colour. I'd say that was a smooth.

:nod: agreed. must post up the video i got after chucking my gopro in the pond last year for a while. Newts have massive balls!

they are absolute murder on tadpoles. they wont 'eat a few' as suggested above; they will eat the lot. Be good if you get some as watching them hunt is quite creepy - they inhale stuff, and if it moves, its dead. Our frogs gave up laying frogspawn in our pond a few years ago - they must know what happens somehow (though the frogs themselves still hang out there every year)

if you've already seeing several at the same time, in a few years you'll have tons of the buggers

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Well, if it's not newts, it's frogs.

Taken this evening, enlarged and heavily processed so it's a bit crap, but...




This picture is best viewed whilst listening to this...
http://youtu.be/BKPoHgKcqag

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

I've had a reply from the amphibian guy at Surrey Amphibian & Reptile Group. He reckons my picture is of a male smooth newt, and he also says not to worry about them having enough food because they will leave the water to hunt on land for invertebrates at night. I had incorrectly assumed that they stay permanently in the water during the breeding season.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Well, that patient male frog hung on for days, and then they both disappeared. I thought they'd buggered off without, er, doing it - but I was wrong...





Anyone else got frogspawn?