While out harvesting a bed of sweet potatoes the other afternoon, I came across a new little buddy! A newt! I’m not sure if he was burrowing in the ground, prowling the vines for snacks, or if i accidentally buried him while digging and searching for sweet potatoes. But I was able to snap a few pics before I let him go in a different hugelkulture bed.
A Red-Spotted Newt prowling the sweet potato vines for a snack
It turns out that he/she is a eastern red spotted newt (Notophthalmus viridescens). These guys eat small invertebrates mostly, and are a good sign that our garden is in a healthy and ecologically robust state. Some cool facts I found on the red spotted newt is that they navigate via a combination of magnetic and solar orientation, and that they have a small amount of toxin in their skin as a defense against predators.
He was moving pretty slowly, probably from the cold, and I was glad I got to hang out with him for a little. Finding newts. Just another reason to get outside and play in the dirt.