Great Crested Newts

Fabulous day at Culzean Castle learning about GCN identification and surveying. Beautiful weather too.

After a classroom session on newt ID, we went out to the education pond to complete a habitat suitability index (HSI) study and for a demonstration on netting. The HSI was very good on this pond, with good cover, water quality, excellent habitat surrounding it and with a good amount of macrophytes. GCN and palmate newts are known to breed in this pond so it was interesting to hear about the negative eDNA test for GCN.

Some palmate and GCN eggs were found and towards the end of the session, adult male and female palmate newts were found.

A further classroom session on legislation and bottle trap making was followed by a trip to the Fire pond. This pond was very different and scored on the low end of average on the HSI score. Pretty much no macrophyte growth but good pond connectivity.

We were able to try torching (finding a palmate newt) and then netting. Two immature GCN were found that had overwintered there. Bottle traps were placed around the pond and noted down- hopefully I can update on results soon.

A really good course by the FSC and ARC.