Sighting already!

Photo of a diving vole from 2011

I was on the main town car park by Tesco when I glanced into the Staggsbrook and saw a chunky rodent swimming upstream. At first I thought it was probably a rat, but as I stood and watched, it suddenly dived out of sight which is typical water vole behaviour. I also think a rat would tend to swim across water to make the shortest journey rather than along the water course, and run out onto the bank to escape rather than dive below the surface.

I know there are voles about here because two posts back I photographed their prints. So this is a first for me because I have never seen a water vole as early as January before!