Thursday, June 04, 2026

A walk up the quarry road brought no wood warbler - but I did see my first spotted flycatcher of the year.


A sharp shower of rain made me seek shelter under the trees, after which I had a dry walk back down. It was very wet underfoot everywhere, with streams where there usually aren't streams, and waterlogged grassy areas where I've previously walked seeking dragonflies, butterflies, and lizards. An unpromising puddle in a gravelly ditch showed movement - at least seven palmate newts! A nice dark male showed the distinguishing marks of his species and sex (at least in the breeding season), i.e the webbed appearance of the hind feet and a filament end to the tail.


Others - mostly female I think - had a markedly reddish colouring. This particular female grasped a leaf/blade with her hind legs, bent it over (the stone at the top of the photo shows the original position of the top part of the leaf), laid her egg, and then glided away afterwards leaving the leaf folded (protectively, we hope) over the egg.






One of the photos shows enough of the throat to confirm that it's pale pink and unspotted - a surefire way, apparently, to tell female palmate from female common newts. At least today's newts are safe from unaware mountain bikers and walkers (unlike those in the puddles up on the hill path), but I'm not sure how viable the eggs will be in what is probably a temporary pool; however, palmate newts are fairly common in the north-west Highlands, so I suppose enough of them survive to keep the species going!

// posted by Christine @ 1:08 PM
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