Red Elf

This is one of our native newts. Another fascinating reptile, it is born in the water and then leaves to wander the earth as a little red newt when it's an adolescent. After it's summer of being a wild teenager it turns green and returns to the water. They really travel, we find them a lot on our mountain biking trips and often quite far from a pond or stream (although Southern NH isn't skimpy on the ponds and streams.) My mountain biking companion (also the outsider artist I have been posting) and I have often nearly subjected ourselves to horrid accidents in order to avoid running these little guys over. One summer there were so many of them in the road outside my house that I could barely get down the street to my friend's house since I felt obliged to move them all to the side of the road to avoid the traffic. There is a dam I know of in the woods on fish & game land, and at the base of that dam every spring in early May there is a regular salamander (grown-up newt) orgy for a couple of weeks. I will try to get a photo of it next spring if I am still writing the blog. My nephew asked me what I am going to write about over the winter and I honestly don't know ... I guess a lot of weather related topics.