3.55 p.m., 10 C, 50 F, breezy from north-east
A female smooth newt appears briefly at the sunny, shallow edge of the pond. A bear-like cat saunters across our veg garden but makes a speedy return when Poppy, next door’s little dog spots him.
From our hawthorn hedge, the jingling song of a dunnock. There’s a sprinkling of pale petals of crab apple blossom across the pond, closely followed by the paper napkin that I’ve been using to blot my water-brush on. Luckily the cord of my sun hat gets caught in the zip of my fleece as it blows off my head, otherwise that would have ended up in the pond too.
No wonder the female smooth newt disappeared into the pondweeds: soon after I return indoors, I see that the female blackbird from the nest in the corner of the hedge has caught a male newt. She shakes it repeatedly and I get glimpses of the male newts bright orange belly, speckled with dark spots like a butterfly’s wing.
Two hours later, I saw her back again at the end of the pond. She went down to the water’s edge and with a quick stab caught another male newt.