Tuesday 24 March 2009

Endless latrines, but nothing at White Lion Meadow

A water vole dropping against a 1p piece, for scale

Refreshed latrine outside the timber yard

Latrine on the Prees Branch Canal

Latrine under the bridge on Greenfields Rise, outside the Country Park

Droppings under the bridge near Homebase

I've come to the conclusion there are no water voles at present in the car park stretch of White Lion Meadow. This isn't especially significant: colonies do move about, up and down waterways, and if there's a breeding female outside the timber yard as the refreshed latrine suggests, then I'm sure there'll be voles back under the swimming pool stretch before too long (not least because they can't extend in the other direction due to a massive culvert).
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Meanwhile there's clearly activity elsewhere, despite the lack of sightings.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As far as the car-park and timber yard stretch goes how many breeding females would that accomodate? It's not a big patch.

Kate said...

It's not an exact science as a lot depends on how rich the area is - the more there is to eat on a bank, the smaller the territories can afford to be. Probably at this time of year we're only looking at one anyway, though.

I must add, this evening something was tugging at the grass from below, up by the car park. So perhaps there is a water vole there after all.