During the hot, dry weather of summer 2018 we noticed a male Blackbird Turdus merula on the lawn of our rural garden in Warwickshire feeding on what appeared to be a newt. At first we thought little of this: Blackbirds have been recorded feeding on amphibians before and there is a good population of Smooth Newts Lissotriton vulgaris in our garden pond (a kidney-shaped pond, roughly 3.7 m x 2.4 m). Oxygen levels in the pond were low at the time, owing to the hot weather, and this had brought the newts near to the surface, so we assumed this individual had been caught when it had ventured out of the pond and onto dry land.