DAMIEN ENRIGHT: Eye of newt and feast of frogspawn
It is bright here in West Cork, although unseasonable cold.
However, the north wind in the face as we walk across the big, empty strands is invigorating; and one can wrap up against the cold while there’s only so much one can strip off in order to stay cool in the heat.
This afternoon, I bought a stamp for a letter to Spain and noticed that it depicts a smooth newt, the very creature I was intending to write about, a creature I saw in the flesh in a Leicester city pond last week.
Setting off to walk across a park in beautiful, early-evening light, I was attracted to a pond only a hundred yards from the busy intersection I’d just crossed. Ponds are more interesting than swathes of parkland, however romantic they may seem as the setting sun transforms plain grass into hazy vistas, and gilds adults and children as if they were gods. I paused by the pond upon noticing clumps of frogspawn shining on the surface.
Standing looking at it, I noticed a sudden upheaval beneath the jellied blob and, curious, stopped and stood silently staring at it like an idiot bemused. It happened again; it was as if something was eating the spawn from beneath, tugging at it.
A minute later, the rounded, apricot-coloured head of a pretty little smooth newt gently broke the surface, its large eyes and tiny four-toed feet making it the picture of innocence — while, of course, it had been feasting on embryonic frogs. Newts regularly dine on frogspawn; in fact, almost everything that swims or flies over fresh water enjoys the jellied desert, including birds, fish, newts, water beetles, and dragonflies.
I was happy to see a newt, and returned to my temporary quarters elated. The last time I saw newts was in London in the 1970s when, while caring for an adolescent starling, fallen out of the nest just before it had gained full flight feathers (it flew off within a week) my wife and I went worm-hunting in Holland Park and, turning over a rotten log, found two sleepy smooth newts hiding in the bark. Such logs are a favoured hibernation venue for newts.
I recall, as a boy, going to a gravel pit near Thurles, Co Tipperary, which swarmed with newts. It is curious that, in the 2012 Irish Wildlife Trust Newt Survey, Tipperary and Louth were found to be “newt-free zones”.
Irish stamps are excellent at raising awareness of those native creatures and plants in our countryside that are rarely seen, pine martens, merlins, viviparous lizards, and sundews to name a few. Our natural heritage is one that we can truly be proud of although much of it survives due more to our topography than to human efforts.
Where humans encroach, wild creatures, present for millennia, often disappear almost overnight. I have seen this happen when a housing estate was built over rough land where lizards basked every summer, and butterflies, including the rare marsh fritillary, flew.
Two days after we arrived home, well-known song-writer and bard, Michael O’Brien, showed me a still bright corpse of a lizard that his cat had brought in. It was tailless, the tail-stump healed; it was likely its second cat-encounter but it had failed to learn. Cats are notorious lizard murderers and I personally would not entertain the idea of keeping a cat, although we once did. It often brought in lizards and laid them on our bed.
Our adopted heron was tapping at our bedroom window first morning back, having seen the car once parked in the yard. Smart bird; and it has no fear of cats. Cats steer clear of the said Ron who, with a four-inch long, dagger-sharp beak, would be a formidable foe.
We still don’t know if he/she, Ron/Veronica, is male or female, if it has raised chicks this season or not. I think not. While heron squabs squawk in the nests below our house, R/V hangs about our yard. His/her breeding colours are fading somewhat, but I do not think it is from overwork.
* Please report 2013 newt sightings to Seán Meehan at newts@iwt.ie or on 087-9207583.
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