Monday 28 February 2011

Putting out the Welcome Mat

Construction going on in the same field as the water voles. Council planners have stipulated the work must not come any closer to the bank than ten metres.
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Ditch with piece of wood thrown in.

But closer inspection of the plank reveals a latrine. It's always worth checking floating junk if you think water voles might be in the vicinity.
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Water vole footprints further down the ditch, towards Grocontinental
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It's helpful when the first latrines appear, because colonies don't always stay in the same place from year to year so it can take a few weeks for me to work out where best to set up my camera. And there's no surer sign of water vole activity than droppings - it's like the animal's putting out its front door mat.
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The water voles in the field near Grocontinental seem to wake up earlier than the ones just across the railway line, so there are three latrines in this ditch already and I'm hoping to get my first vole sighting here next month. However, Grocontinental are busy with some building work not far away, so I hope the brook stays uncontaminated and undisturbed.

2 comments:

Kath McGurl said...

I was wondering when the voles would come out to play again. Hope the building work doesn't disturb them.

Kate said...

A lot of people will be keeping a VERY close eye on the building work, you can be sure.