Old otter spriant
Not sure what this is: it's definitely mustelid, but had no detectable smell so could feasibly be mink..
Here's a busy place! After the comments on my last post, I went to take another look at Quoisley. I don't bother with this area much because I suspect there are now mink around that section of the canal and therefore no water voles: Malcolm Monie and I surveyed several ditches there last summer and drew a blank.
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However, the bridge looks as though it's a very ottery spot, judging by the amount of spraint on the kerb under there. That's probably good news for water voles, in that the theory is otters drive away mink. While otters do take the odd vole, they don't go through a whole colony and wipe it out the way a female mink does.
5 comments:
Did you spot the burrow?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44233922@N04/4067977101/in/photostream/
No, I didn't! Hard to tell from the photo, but is it mouse/bank vole size, or rat?
Two inches wide on the Marbury side of the canal, walking back to the bridge. The canal is on the left and it is at the start of the foundations of the bridge.
Two inches seems small for rat and big for mouse. It could be much-used mouse, or it could be a juvenile rat, I suppose. About the right dimensions for a slim water vole, but I feel in the wrong place. I'll have a good root around in the spring and see what I can find.
Update: the Cheshire County Mammal Recorder thinks the unidentified spraint is otter. Good news.
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