My name is James Grundy, formally a postman, now a consultant ecologist and the the self published author of 'Newts in your pond and garden'
For 27 years I worked reasonably happily for Royal Mail and outside work pursued my lifelong interest in amphibian conservation.
In 2006 Royal Mail unexpectedly offered me a generous redundancy package, after some thought I decided to accept and chase my dream of working with amphibians and publishing a book about newts.
Prior to leaving Royal Mail I was fortunate in securing a self employed role as a consultant ecologist with a Cheshire ecological consultancy.
My role as a self employed ecologist gave me the time to finally complete my book 'Newts in your pond and garden' and the redundancy money from Royal mail paid for it to be published.
For those interested in such things I undertook the entire publishing process myself from obtaining the ISBN number to organizing the printer.
The book and my role as a consultant ecologist is based in no small part on my 40 years experience with UK amphibians in particular the great crested newt.
Great crested newts are a strictly protected species under both UK and European legislation and fines of up to 5000 and or six months imprisonment can be imposed by the courts for offenses that result in the death, injury or disturbance of the great crested newt at all stages of its life cycle. This protection also extends to their places of shelter and protection which includes their breeding ponds and terrestrial foraging habitat.
Wherever possible we try to avoid the use of weed killers and pesticides and employ wildlife friendly gardening techniques that consider the life cycles and requirements of the amphibians/wildlife living in our pond and garden.
Whenever possible we encourage our neighbours to do the same, with varying degrees of success!
For the past 15 years I have been involved in conservation work and often stage live newt exhibits at events and give talks to children in schools.
About three years ago the enormous level of interest shown by the public at these events convinced me that a book about newts aimed specifically at the general public would be very well received.
I was and remain confident that such a newt book would/will sell thousands!
Three years later in March 2007, after learning how to write a book (very hard), take wildlife photographs (even harder), and how difficult it is to get a publisher interested (almost impossible, one actually laughed when I told him about the book!) I finally took delivery of 2000 copies of 'Newts in your pond and garden'
One year later and much to my surprise! 1500 copies of Newts in your pond and garden, paid for out of my own pocket, are still stacked up in the corner of our living room. I am sure you can imagine my wife's delight at this unexpected turn of events...
To help publicise the book I have created a website www.newtsinyourpond.com (see my link above) I hope you can find time to look at the website which contains many previously unseen newt photographs, to help aid the identification of any newts that you might find in your own pond and garden.
The website also answers many commonly asked newt questions, and has a detailed guide to the newt year.
Kind Regards
James Grundy