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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)
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- Griffiths Tool Hire (3)
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- hares (9)
- harvest mouse (4)
- hedgehog (31)
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- latrine (281)
- lawn (1)
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- mating (3)
- Mile Bank Road (7)
- mink (8)
- mole (1)
- moths (2)
- mouse (5)
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- nest (2)
- newt (14)
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- 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
4 comments:
Fabulous photos Kate, nicely captured. I didn't get to vole watch during my 30 Days Wild Challenge but I'm not giving up and hope to go out vole watching sometime soon.
Lovely to see these, many thanks - especially as my water voles have been so elusive in recent weeks... Lots of sitting and waiting, late afternoon today and yesterday, to no avail, not even a rustle nor a ripple... Some wonderful dragonflies, damselflies and butterflies about though - plus, a real treat of a green woodpeckers' family outing! They were flitting to and fro between the trees and 'yaffling' a fair bit, though the young ones didn't seem to have quite got the hang of that yet..
Thanks also for the rats info - fairly reassuring, and I'm hoping that they won't be a problem (and I've only twice seen the one individual, so far). Someone was trying to tell me that rats will go into the vole holes looking for the babies... (the same person however told me "water voles are omnivores", and said they "eat worms" etc..!)
There are occasional instances of water voles eating fish and possibly snails, but normally they're plain vegetarian. Rats will take baby voles, I'm afraid, but not in the clearing-out way mink will. I'm not getting many sightings either and can't see many latrines, which is worrying. I'll see what the next week reveals. There's definitely feeding going on, at least.
I've only ever glimpsed green woodpeckers, so I'm very envious!
Hi - yes, I did fear that rats going into holes to take baby voles could well be true...
I can't really see the latrines here, the activity is almost all on the far bank of the ditch - I did find one once with binoculars though. Some of the holes here do look to be "in use", kind of wet and shiny at the base, as though the voles are still slipping in and out of there (just not when I'm watching!) Other holes look dried out and abandoned.. Sightings tailed off very much this time last year too - I suspect one reason could be that the main activity is early a.m. then late evening, just before dusk.
Hope you also get some good sightings again soon..
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