The voles have definitely been shyer this last fortnight. I suspect a predator myself - that stoat, maybe - but nevertheless there's still a fair amount of activity about.
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The diary of a water vole colony
Labels
- adder (4)
- Ash (1)
- bank vole (6)
- barn owl (3)
- bat (1)
- Belton Farm (1)
- Bettisfield (1)
- Black Park Road (31)
- blue-green algae (2)
- Brick Kiln Farm (5)
- Broughall (12)
- Brown Moss (5)
- burrow (107)
- burrows (2)
- Chester zoo (4)
- Colemere (2)
- Coton (1)
- council (37)
- Criftins (1)
- ditch near Grocontinental (45)
- ditch near Lidl (2)
- dormice (1)
- dragonfly (6)
- Edward German Drive (73)
- Ellesmere (2)
- Environment Agency (31)
- feeding (143)
- Feeding station (83)
- field off Edgeley Road (425)
- field vole (44)
- Fordhall Farm (2)
- gardening (3)
- Grange Farm Ash (2)
- Greenfields Rise (1)
- Griffiths Tool Hire (3)
- Grocontinental (2)
- habitat (2)
- hares (9)
- harvest mouse (4)
- hedgehog (31)
- kit (4)
- latrine (281)
- lawn (1)
- lizard (20)
- Llangollen canal (3)
- mating (3)
- Mile Bank Road (7)
- mink (8)
- mole (1)
- moths (2)
- mouse (5)
- Nantwich (3)
- nest (2)
- newt (14)
- Norfolk (2)
- otter (45)
- plate (3)
- polecat (4)
- pollution (3)
- predator (51)
- Prees Branch Canal (35)
- Prees Heath (18)
- Prints (101)
- Quoisley Bridge (3)
- Raft (25)
- railway bridge by Homebase (42)
- rat (51)
- red squirrels (1)
- run (1)
- Saddlers Walk (23)
- Shropshire Wildlife Trust (4)
- Sighting (706)
- skull (2)
- snake (5)
- sparrowhawk (1)
- Steel Heath (6)
- stoat (7)
- timber yard (61)
- toad (5)
- trackway (5)
- vole spoon (4)
- water level (11)
- water shrew (15)
- Wayland Road (9)
- Waymills (6)
- weasel (7)
- Wem Moss (2)
- Whitchurch Country Park (64)
- White Lion Meadow car park (near Tesco) (427)
- Whitwater (Hickory Hollow) (3)
- Whixall (6)
- Whixall Moss (22)
- wood mouse (4)
- Wybunbury Moss (5)
- Yockings Gate (18)
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
2 comments:
Still very few sightings here - but, they are hanging on!! Great to keep seeing your lovely photos anyway. I saw an unusually dark water vole, quite large so not a baby, about halfway along the ditch on Saturday. It was my first sighting at all for 2 weeks, and the first in that particular area in over 6 weeks.
As for predators, as well as the grass snake sighting, I've seen a pike in the ditch myself now, lurking close to the bank - others have seen more than one in there, adult and juveniles... (Have decided the college cat wouldn't get through the brambles and down the steep embankment and into the vole-zone - no-one has ever seen it that close, or even at all, recently.. Good!)
As young grow and disperse you do get fewer sightings. But it sounds as if yours are hanging in, like mine.
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