Going on Dave's tip yesterday, I took myself down to the timber yard and almost straight away saw this water vole. It looked like a pregnant female to me, but that might just be wishful thinking on my part.
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The diary of a water vole colony
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About this Blog
This blog charts the fortunes of water voles in and around the Whitchurch area, North Shropshire. Water voles are one of the UK's most threatened mammals, extinct in many counties, and so it's vital they receive as much monitoring and protection as there is going. Here in Whitchurch we're lucky enough to have them right in the middle of town - how cool is that?
Links
- Wood Lane Nature Reserve at Ellesemere
- Wildlife Kate (not me!)
- Whitchurch Water Vole Group
- Views of the Ock - another water vole blog
- Terry Whittaker's wonderful vole photos
- Shropshire CC countryside information
- Richard Steel's wildlife photographs
- Out and About nature blog
- Jo Cartmell's shiny new Water Vole Info site
- Gilly Otter's lovely blog
- Derek Gow, Water Vole Expert
- Countryside Tales
- Contact the Environment Agency about river pollution here:
- Careering Through Nature
- Beautiful French wildlife blog
- ARKive short video clips and photos of water voles
3 comments:
Lovely shot! Hurray that they're back!
But a clearer and rather more measured photo.
The shifting territory question’s interesting. What happens with the young? Do they disperse and look for new homes/mates as soon as they’re able? Do the last of the season stick around and over-winter with their parents?
Perhaps the car-park stretch became vacant last autumn due to the voles being muscled aside by rats or maybe the voles died off naturally over the winter. It could stay vacant until the first brood are mature enough to start their own families.
I think your final paragraph answers your question. Sad to say, I don't think Spot made it, and I suspect his territory's now vacant and waiting for the population overspill from Edward German Drive/the timberyard (the two sections either side of the main car park stretch).
I think the voles tend to disperse fom July onwards; I seem to remember Derek Gow telling me this when I queried a mid-season fall in numbers during 2006.
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