The Wood Yard

On first impressions, the ditch outside Haydock's wood yard is a really unpromising environment for water voles. The banks are very steep and it's a stretch that's often filled with litter. But the water's clean, and like the section on the other side of the culvert (White Lion Meadow), it's so noisy here that there are unlikely to be any predators around. With razor wire along one bank, and nettles down the other, the place gets left to itself.

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So it's great to see some more latrines here, this time right next to the far end culvert near the timber yard gates. This indicates the water voles have spread right along, as they did in 2006.