OK I will own up. I am now spending a little time each night with a torch, looking at just what is going on in my pond. At the moment, the tadpoles are doing less swimming around in the shallow shelf at night. This could be because the Palmate newts (the count has been going up all week and I'm on 14 plus tonight) are canoodling in the shallows. I have never seen so many together. The rather plump ones are the lady newts. The male newts apparently have orange on the tails. Tonight I could see which ones were males as several were having nose to nose confrontations, obviously one will win the eyeballing competition and the other will eventually back down. I was smiling as I watched them, thinking of what they might be saying to one another: "I'm tough I am." "Well, I'm real 'ard I am. I was brought up in the East End of this pond, I'll 'ave you know." Do you think newts do Glasgow handshakes?! Tomorrow I will attempt to take a flash photo at night of their goings-on.
Meanwhile, I am beginning to understand P G Wooster's Gussie Fink-Nottle and his passion for newts . . .
