Newt sandwich for a baby bird

Sandy Bedfordshire In a dry, wormless spring our resident male blackbird has become a fisher of newts

Through french windows framed by flowering clematis, I saw a blackbird touch down on the lawn. Leaning even as it landed, its beak led it in a pitter-patter metre-dash for the pond. At the water's edge its head dipped then jerked back, and it tossed something very large over its shoulder on to the turf.

In this droughty, wormless spring, our resident male blackbird had switched to becoming a fisher of newts.