I'm finding a lot of burrows at the back of Edward German Drive just now, plus this feeding station (directly above) and a latrine (middle picture). It's rare to find a burrow you can be absolutely 100% sure is water vole, but this one was as it contained some cut-off stalks of buttercup, which I removed carefully with my litter picker. Another vole fan reminded me the other day that w-v burrows are about the size of a Pringles tube, which is a handy reference; rat holes are a bit larger. Vole borrows also tend to be nearer the water level than rats'.
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Worth saying here that it's against the law to interfere with a water vole burrow, or disturb it in any way, so when we do our surveys we're always super-careful not to tread on the actual banks, and when we've parted vegetation to look at something, we always put it back in place again. My litter picker's very useful when it comes to remote-examination!
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A steady stream of sightings at White Lion Meadow this week, despite the weather.
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