Great Crested newts are a medium sized newt, which can be found across much of mainland Britain.
Newts are amphibians, breeding in ponds during the spring and spending most of the rest of the year feeding on invertebrates in woodland, hedgerows and tussocky grassland. They hibernate underground, amongst tree roots and in old walls. The British populations of this rare amphibian are internationally important.
The Great Crested Newt is the largest of the British newts and, in the breeding season adult males are recognisable by their jagged crest and silvery-blue and almost fluorescent stripe down the centre of the tail. Both sexes have a dark brown warty body and yellowish-orange belly with black blotches.
The Great Crested Newt is widespread in Europe but is threatened and in decline throughout much of its range. Britain has probably Europe's largest population and is, therefore, very important to the continuing survival of the Great Crested Newt.
These Newts need water-bodies such as ponds for breeding but, for most of the year, they live on dry land.
Typical breeding sites contain a number of medium to large ponds that have some areas of clear, base-rich water, deeper than 30 cm and with few fish predators.
Such ponds are usually surrounded by terrestrial habitat with plentiful ground cover (e.g. scrub, trees, long grass) with moist refuges in which newts spend the daytime (e.g. log piles, rocks or other debris). The Forestry Commission have built several ponds around the forest to help support this rare newt.
This cache is a clip lock box. There is a FTF keyring for the First To Find. Please feel free to swap any item in the ‘cache but please remember, if you take something, leave something of equal or greater value in return.
Renumbered from 8 to 10 to create a more logical series around the forest.
First To Find honours go to: Mackiespal
N.B. All the caches in this series have been granted permission to be placed by Joanne Mason, the Beat Manager for the forest, written permission has been passed to the Reviewers. The Forestry Commission will not give permission for any more caches in these woods. Please do not ask the Reviewers to place any further caches as the FC will not allow it and placement of further caches will result in geocaching being banned in this area.