Dorset - Powerstock Common (01/06/2023)

Traditionally Powerstock Common is always the first venue that we visit on our annual trips to Dorset. As always, it did not disappoint with Tiger beetles, an Adder, Orchids, including Butterfly Orchid, Butterflies including Marsh Fritillary and Grizzled Skipper, spiders and the colours and wildlife of the ponds

Pondlife at Mapperton, Dorset

Yesterday morning, we visited Mapperton Gardens on our way to Kingcombe and spent a long while photographing the various animals on and under the water including Water Boatmen sculling around, a Diving Beetle larva and  Pondskaters on the surface. Most of the time it was trying to catch the newts as the came up to the surface- both Palmated newts and Smooth Newts plus a large number of Toad tadpoles 

Smooth Newts

Many thanks to Richard Revels for introducing us to his Newts and the attractive set up to photograph them. We greatly enjoyed the session until exhaustion of a battery stopped play.  These are Smooth Newts (also known as  Common Newt, Lissotriton vulgaris). The first two are males with the crest and the third a female.

Great Crested Newt

We found this Great Crested Newt underneath our wheelie bin last night.

Great Crested Newts are our largest native newt species and have distinctly warty skin of blackish appearance.. They also have fine white spots on their lower flanks, which are more obvious in breeding males. Their undersides are either yellow or orange-coloured and are covered in large black blotches. Males can be distinguished from females by the presence of a jagged crest that runs along their backs, dipping at the rear of the abdomen to a smoother-edged crest above and below the tail. The male’s crest is more pronounced during the breeding season, and lies flat to the body when the newt is out of water. Females lack a crest, but have a yellow-orange stripe along the lower edge of their tails.

You can see a small crest along the back of our friend and the orange stripe along the underside of tail - probably a female - any experts out there?