In the garden in spring the hour after sunset is sometimes the best. As the afterglow fades in the western sky the sounds of the day die away and even the rooftop blackbird, whose song echoes around the houses in late afternoon, falls silent. Then the creatures of the night begin to appear.
We were hoping we might see the hedgehog that left droppings on the path the night before but the visitor this time was a palmate newt, making laborious progress on its short legs through the long grass.
A newt on dry land is a vulnerable, ungainly, animal with a belly-dragging gait, little changed since its ancestors forsook water for dry land over 350m years ago. But, supported by water they become graceful moon-walkers, crossing the pond bottom with the weightless buoyancy of an astronaut.
Sometimes they just float near the surface, legs outstretched; sometimes, in pursuit of prey or a mate, they become miniature water dragons, tucking their legs backwards against their body, alligator fashion, weaving through the waterweed with an undulating wriggle of the tail.
Newts have bred in the garden for a decade but to see them we usually have to search the pond by torchlight at dusk. Last spring we watched as a male newt pursued a female, then, placing himself across her path, used his frilly tail to waft irresistible mating pheromones in her direction. Newt courtship is a balletic, seductive, affair compared with the belligerence, raucous calls and orgiastic couplings of frogs and toads.
I coaxed the newt on to my hand, rolling him on to his back to reveal his yellow belly. In spring, palmate newts’ hind feet become webbed, to better grip a mate, but the front feet retain delicate separate toes. He used them to grip my fingers and right himself but made no attempt to escape, sitting in my palm, as chilled as the evening air against the warmth of my hand.
This was the first newt we’d seen this year. They hide during the daylight hours when they are easy prey for magpies and crows. Unobtrusive crepuscular habits protect them from everything but an unlucky encounter with a hedgehog.
