Newt Love 2

More pictures of the Sunol newts. There must have been hundreds of the newts coupling in the pond. OK, so "coupling" is probably not the best word. Sometimes there were whole writhing masses of them. Lots more were walking around on the ground nearby. We counted about 25 just walking up the road to the pond, and walking down to the pond's edge was complicated by the necessity of carefully watching each step for wriggling shapes heading toward the love pond. There was some serious newt procreation happening in that pond. I'm not sure if the full moon had anything to do with the timing of it, but it helped us to appreciate the magnitude of the celebration. Earlier in the night there was an eerie mist all around, making the trees loom up like Ents as we passed on the trail, and causing us to need our headlamps to avoid stepping on newts, despite the bright moon. Then, as we stood on the edge of the pond gaping like voyeurs, the mist cleared and all was illuminated. Truly magical.