Anthony Campbell wrote:
Until a couple of years ago our small pond in our north London garden
was regularly populated with common newts breeding in spring. For the
last two years there have been no newts. Does this reflect the
widespread loss of amphibians that has been reported? They are certainly
missed.



I knew that there were concerns about the crested newt in the UK but
hadn't realised until you posted that this now applies to the common
newt as well. Did a bit of googling and discovered that, like the
crested, they are now a protected species:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfact...iles/479.shtml

I wonder if their further decline relates to the hot summers, cold
winters and lack of rainfall we have had over the last couple of years -
hopefully our recent mild winter and very wet weather this year will
mean that they will start to recover in numbers this year.

Gill