When Voles Grow Wings

Moves like a vole, is brown as a vole, but isn't a vole.

The ditch near Grocontinental, featuring...

...a latrine by the bridge

I'm sure these are water vole prints and not rat - White Lion Meadow
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It's still too cold to go out watching for water voles, but the evening was so nice I couldn't stay indoors so went in search of field signs. There are water vole footprints at White Lion Meadow (near Tesco), another latrine in the ditch by Grocontinental, and new burrows at Edward German Drive and the field off Edgeley Road.

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Thought I'd had my first sighting of the year! - but it turned out to be this wren. I can't tell you how many times I've confused wrens and voles, given they're often found in the same location and creep about in the same way. I've even seen wrens come out of vole holes. Most annoying.