Palmate Newt

There are times when my cat can be a pain in the butt. Tonight I was just uploading some more video on to the computer, when she started to agitate for something. I knew it was not water, even though she has a bowl of fresh water down stairs, she will often demand that I turn the tap on so she can drink from the slowly running tap. But that wasn't it, so I told her that there was food in the bowl downstairs. Eventually I had to show her that there was food there for her, not the smartest of cats is trouble. Anyway I saw that I had my empty milk bottle still to put out for the milkman, so I did that. As I went out though I spotted a newt on the doorstep.

I rushed back in to get the video camera, but it was still transferring to the computer. It only had a couple more minutes to run so I thought I had better let it finish. This I did, and as I loaded in the blank tape and got the light set up, I was convinced it would be gone. And yes it was no longer on the step, but I looked around and there it was so I filmed it. I even put my finger near it so that folks could get a sense of its size, as they are tiny. All the newt species we have are only a few inches long, head to foot.

Once I had captured it on film, I left her to find her resting place or the food that she was seeking. I took down my field guide to reptiles and amphibians of the shelf and endeavoured to identify her. It was not a Great Crested Newt and the guide confirmed that. So I thought it must be a smooth newt, but still the identifying features were not right. Really that only left the Palmate Newt, I checked and double checked and that was what it was, what she is.

Now all the Newts are rare and endangered and because of the conservation work that I get involved in I even got a licence to handle Newts as we have a local colony of Great Crested Newts and Smooth Newts. But while there are Palmate Newts in the region, I was lead to understand that the Palmate Newt is so rare that it was not know if there were any locally.

Well I can now confirm that there are, and one has taken up residence in my back yard. Well Trouble, (that's the name of my Cat) you can have an extra cuddle for disturbing me and enabling me to make this discovery.

Tomorrow, I will dig out the email address of the local reptile recorder and tell him of the find as well as the link to the film. But I just had to share this with you folks. Sleep who needs it!