MARCH is the first month of spring - or at least we hope so.

Lambs will be born, and the first splashes of colour will start to appear as the first of the wild flower open their blooms.

Frogs will also awake from their hibernation and make their way to the pools of their birth, where they will, rather noisily, go about the business of finding a mate.

Frogs are not the only amphibians emerging from hibernation. Toads will also be walking, rather than hopping like frogs, to the pools where they were born and newts are also back in circulation.

There are three species of newts which you are likely to encounter in the wilds.

There is the palmate newt, the smooth newt and the great crested newt, the first two being far more likely to be encountered in Wyre Forest.

Newts are much more secretive with their movements, preferring to travel in the dead of night, and preferably when it is raining. When they get to the pools, their mating rituals are also far more discreet.

Frogs and toads engage in a rather brutal courtship regime.

Males wait in ambush around the traditional breeding pools and grab fiercely at the back of any passing frog or toad.

Sometimes this is another male, and the grabbed male, in resistance to this unwanted attention, gives out a forceful croak. This is usually enough for the mistaken male to let go.

If it is a female which has been grabbed, her assailant will hold on and ferociously fight off any other males who attempt to grab the same female.

These tussles can lead to a swarming ball of fighting males forming in and around pools.

Sometimes these clusters of fighting males can lead to the female being drowned.

The newt courtship on the other hand is a much more civilised matter. The males of all three newt species grow a decorative crest across their back and tails (this is a bit larger in the great crested).

They then use this as part of an elaborate dance, which they perform at the bottom of the pool to attract females.

Young news are almost identical in form to tadpoles, however they tend to have large, prominent, feathery in appearance, external gills.

The new larvae also spend far longer in the pool than their frog relatives.The larvae frequently spend the following winter hibernating in the pool before undergoing the metamorphosis into young adults the following summer.