Back Garden Bonanza @BBCAutumnwatch

This blip kept changing on me. It could have been a Redwing - spotted by Rebecca whilst making breakfast - but I chose bins over camera and missed the opportunity. It could have been the tree that the Redwing was in - but that was just a very poor and desparate back-up. It could have been the fungi that sprang up in the garden overnight - then I stumbled upon this! Moving a windfall apple so I could mow the lawn, I noticed three slugs on it. But hold on a cotton-picking minute! The third slug's got LEGS!

I can't tell you how this find thrilled me. As a child, on of my friends had a dad who "worked down dock". He used to catch frogs, toads and newts in his lunch hour and bring them back for his son. I was never allowed to "borrow" any. I've never found a newt in my own garden. Until today! Only been waiting fifty years!!

And of course I put it back where I found it.