As you can imagine, increasing biodiversity means doing lots of different things. Don't worry, a much bigger post is yet to come, but today we are going to focus on water, and newts! We are celebrating our first real biodiversity victory at New Barns Farm.
Water brings life... and our farm held no water. The first thing we did here, precisely 1 day after our planning permission came through, was to dig a series of ponds. We have 7 in total, two of which are quite large and hold well over 300,000L of water between them. These are live, soil lined ponds, planted to create complex ecosystems... In the first year they were a little barren but now they are absolutely teeming with life.
At just before 9pm, on Friday, April 26th (yes, Friday nights are a whole different kind of fun on the farm) our first newt survey began. With the expert guidance of John, a Masters Student from the University of Kent, we spotted 2 in our top pond and 10 in the bottom pond (all Smooth Newts). This was on an unseasonably cold night, when they are relatively inactive, so we expect to find more as it warms up. Also, John told us that the rule of thumb is that for every newt you see there are 10 that you don't. Can you spot the newt in the first image? We have zoomed in and circled it in the second one, to help you out!
Newts and other predators like dragonfly larvae are a sign of healthy ecosystems... it was great to have John's confirmation that our ponds are doing very well indeed! During the count we saw common frogs, toad spawn, pipistrelle bats, at least 10 kinds of beetle, nesting Moorhens, and two large hedgehogs.
Here is a maths challenge for you, when you go from 0 newts to 12+ newts, what is the percentage increase in newts?
Water brings life.
