earliest sighting????

Clearing out one of my garden ponds this afternoon, I came accross a fully crested up male Triturus cristatus swimming around.

They returned early last year, but although weve had a mild December, this seems rather early to me.

Trouble is, Im going to be out there every chance I get now looking out for any more returning newts.

Hi Morg,

Last year we had a couple of smooth newts active in the pond in early January. I'll have to get out with a torch and see if they around this year. It seems some indivdual newts can be around at this time, but I've not seen male GCN or males of either of the other two species in full breeding dress this early.

I kept a log of smooth newt sightings in our garden pond last year, it was interesting to see how from a couple of active females in January the numbers rose into the 30's by March.

Well they are back early again this year.

First sighting in my garden ponds was the 2nd of January 2007.

This sighting was one fully crested up T cristatus, so last night I spent some time out there pond watching and in one of my small gardens ponds I saw 3 male cristatus, 1 female cristatus[being persued by one of the males tail wafting, and a male T vulgaris.

It looks like its back to pond watching every night from now on for me lol.