So Excited!

Yes! Congratulations! Love the newts

Glad they were newts. I also have a horror of leeches. I hope they turn out to be Great Crested Newts, but that's probably being a bit optimistic. I believe they are getting rare.

What a lovely surprise . . . Phew!

I've had newts for years, how they got into my ponds originally I don't know. Sometime I find them under a large stone near the ponds.

Fantastic Sue, that’s great! I wish I could have some wildlife in our pond apart from fish! Nice one...☺️

I had newts suddenly appear in my pond as well. It is possible I bought a plant for the margin that had eggs on it

Thank you Karen and Sheila!

Andrew, maybe - or perhaps a passing newt just fancied your pond!

Fewerfew, sorry no they are not Great Crested! After I came in and wrote this blog this morning I carried on pulling out excess weed and found four more much smaller ones. Apparently they take 4 years to come to maturity so I don't know how old these are. Bit of a puzzle as its too soon for this year's and the two year old ones apparently overwinter in the garden under stones etc. Anyway however old they are they are very welcome. I think they original ones came from next door's very neglected pond (fenced off to protect the grandchildren)

Siris that was a big surprise - you have to be so careful putting the stone back don't you?

Kate wildlife will arrive by itself in time if you aren't too tidy. By the way did you get berries on your sea buck thorn?

I often find newts in the undergrowth and they usually only go into water to mate. once they have developed from their tadpole or eft stage and developed lungs properly they are many landlubbers.

Newts and salamanders...you know they are there if you don’t see them....sounds odd but it’s true.

Fingers crossed Sue for the newts and toads to appear one day here..
Yep! I did get berries on the buckthorn..lots and lots! Some of the birds were eating them now and then.

Loosestrife knowing nothing about salamanders I googled them - it says there are more the US than anywhere else and that newts are of the same family. But we don't have them here. Do they behave similarly?

Kate, pleased you got good berries! Have you Googled their edibility?It surprised me a lot...

All newts are salamanders but not all salamanders are newts. Stera, the differences between them are hairs that only a taxonomist would love to split. As for me, to see either one of them in their natural environs is a rare treat.

You are so lucky Stera ! No wonder you were excited !
I didn't think leeches existed in this country.

Well Loosestrife thank you -I had no idea! Easy to see the similarity when you look though. I always thought salamanders were exotic!

Oh they do Rose! I once brought home a big bag of pondweed from the village pond (nothing special, just Canadian pondweed)and tipped it into the sink to wash it before adding it to our new garden pond. The blessed stuff was alive with small leeches. And they don't need to stay in the water - they started climbing up onto the draining board, dozens and dozens of them. It freaked me out. It was the only crisis in my married life that I was totally unable to deal with. OH somehow got rid of them and tipped them out onto a communal grassy space in front of out house. We often wondered what the neighbours must have thought of him pouring a bucketful of what looked from a distance to be just water when it was pouring with rain... They weren't the big blood sucking ones that doctors used to use but at full stretch they weren't more than two inches.

What a horror story!! I would have had to go running to a neighbour for help.

Ooer Stera ! I would have been the same as you ! Doesn't bear thinking about !

I did google them Sue, very interesting indeed!

Well that's one word for it....