Vole of the Day

White Lion Meadow car park again.

Turn up the volume to hear chomping

Sewage?

I so need to work out how to change focus on my camera! Still, managed some shots of a vole in watercress, plus this lovely fly agaric toadstool on the bank. No problems at all when my subject's static.

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I'd like to be able to finish there, positively, but there's another Tesco trolley in the water (so we were two days free of them), and also I've had a report that last week some raw sewage was discharged into the brook. I'll report this, but it's so disheartening to hear.

Twilight vole

White Lion Meadow car park again.

Checking for prints on the Prees Branch Canal

Both clay tracking cartidges showed prints, but we're not sure what animal left them. On the bottom two it looks like the tracks of some small rodent, possibly mouse, because there are teeny mouse-type droppings.

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The top cartridge seems to show larger prints, but they're quite confused. Mink? I sincerely hope not. There was no scat, or other evidence. I also found these droppings (top right) further down the bank which I thought at first were water vole, but I now think could be rat as they're a bit long and pointy.

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Field signs will be getting scarcer this time of the year. I'll go back and check the rafts sooner, before the prints have had time to get smudged.

Camouflage

Can you see him? Talk about blending in.
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(Clicking on the photos enlarges them, if you're struggling!.)