Demolition Man

Bit by bit, the shed is disappearing.  I guess that, as I type this, there is probably very little of it left as there is much banging and clattering outside.

Mr Dancing has made 2 trips today to the recycle centre with the wood neatly cut to fit into the car!  Incidentally, if you are worried about the newt, it was safely deposited at the other end of the garden.

Talking of safely deposited, I had a text message to say that S and P have arrived in Barcelona and that it is lovely and warm.  As you can tell from the photos above, the sun is still sadly absent here –  I’ve just looked out the window and seen the teeniest bit of blue sky through the clouds – oh no – it’s just gone again – the story of our summer.

It’s official – it’s a newt!

I sent a copy of the newt/lizard photograph to The Wiltshire and Swindon Biological Record Centre this morning and had a very prompt reply:

“Your shed ‘lodger’ is a newt. It is almost certainly a female Smooth Newt (Triturus vulgaris) although, depending upon the part of the County that you live in, it could possibly be a female Palmate Newt (T. helveticus). The females of both these species are very similar, especially during Summer and Autumn when they have left the water after egg laying and ‘dulled down’ their mating colours somewhat! Could you let me have a Grid reference or Postcode/address? If so I could narrow it down further (Palmate Newts are predominantly a Western species). If you want any general information on newts and reptiles, there is a specialist organisation called FROGlife (www.froglife.org) who, I believe, have some downloadable fact sheets which you may find of interest.”

Well done Angel!  I expect you’ll be wanting a prize!

Newt News

I’m still confused as to whether yesterday’s “find” was a lizard or a newt, but I did find this intriguing information about newts on Wikipedia:-

“Although newts have a toxin on their skin, most newts can be safely handled, provided that the toxins they produce are not ingested or allowed to come in contact with mucous membranes or breaks in the skin. After handling, proper hand-washing techniques should be followed due to the risk from the toxins they produce and bacteria they carry, such as salmonella.  It is, however, illegal to handle or disturb Great Crested Newts in the UK without a licence.  A 29-year-old man in Coos Bay, Oregon, who had been drinking heavily, swallowed a rough-skin newt Taricha granulosa for a dare. He died later that day despite hospital treatment.

Folklore held that pigs in England could eat newts with impunity, while their French porcine cousins would die a horrible death from the same ingestion. Some Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest used Taricha newts to poison their enemies.^“