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As a young boy my father and I collected Crested Newts, I bred them in fish tanks and enjoyed watching the courtship behaviour and the females laying eggs. We would release baby newts and adults back into the wild.
They were always found in a very small pond which was mainly half a tractor tyre in the ground, even though there was a large pond 100 yards away. Sadly like many of the local places I found wildlife, has now been built on. In my local quarry the newts seem to prefer to breed in ditches than ponds. I have found the dry black adults later in the summer a long way from water under large flat rocks, which I carefully replaced back, you would not believe it was the same large handsome newt. The Great Crested Newt is now an endangered species and protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
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