Just at the last minute a friend contacted me and asked if I'd like to attend the Avon Wildlife Trusts' newt monitoring survey - in hunt mainly for Great Crested Newts in the Avon area...I jumped at the chance!
The background info: The project aims to raise public awareness of ponds and pond networks in our landscape, their heritage value and the plight of our most strictly protected amphibian, the great crested newt Triturus cristatus. Pondways will also actively engage the local community in pond conservation by training volunteers to survey Avon’s public ponds for biological quality and the presence of great crested newts. The British Isles’ largest newt and a Biodiversity Action Plan species, it has specific habitat requirements. Its decline in recent decades is due to the loss of good quality ponds and pond networks, plus a reduction in suitable surrounding terrestrial habitat.
Such surveys will add to the currently limited knowledge of great crested newt distribution within Avon and help to identify where pond networks, crucial to sustaining larger populations, could be restored or created through management. Findings will also contribute to national surveys – ‘The National Amphibian and Reptile Recording Scheme’ (NARRS) and ‘The National Pond Monitoring Network’ (NPMN), as well as be made available to the public through the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) and a Pondways website.
The highly imformative training day event took place in Keynsham, with a ID and survey technique talk to get the 10 volunteers clued up as to what species of newt to look out for. The classroom event lead to a quick survey of 2 local ponds within public access fields. They were in quite a bad state, not much vegetation and a fair bit of floating litter - but! there was positive signs of Great Crested Newts eggs.
The day ended with a nightime torch survey which yielded positive sightings of both Palmate and Smooth newts lurking at the bottom of the pond. The cherry on the cake moment was when we found both a female and a male Great Crested Newt, twas a full house!
The survey will run untill October where we will be designated 3-5 ponds to survey local to us. Hopefully I shall be able to obtain some decent images of any newts discovered which can be submitted along with my recorded findings.
These first few summer months should prove to be a busy one with many surveys currently planned:
Avon Pondways Project - GCN and other newt survey
River Monitoring Scheme
National bat survey - Bat Conservation trust
Stag Beetle survey
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Hallen Village Committee (South Glos.) are very concerned about the possible loss of a newt habitat in the village. Please contact Liz on 01179592098 or Mary on 01179507070
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