Water Repellent Fur

Water voles in some ways aren't especially adapted to an aquatic life, in that they drown pretty easily in floods and they don't have webbed feet to make them stronger swimmers. But they do have fur that dries the second they shake it.

Does my bum look big in this?

Nice rear shot above of the rounded rump of a water vole, and its dark brown tail. Rats' tails are pinky-grey in colour. This is also the vole with the slight fur loss round her left eye. I don't think it can be mange as it hasn't got any worse for weeks.

Top photo is another, slightly lighter-coloured vole. I saw three different water voles this evening.

Fur Colour: Water Voles versus Field Voles

Lots of little animals readily swim, and here's a field vole crossing from one bank to another. It's exactly the same size and shape as a baby water vole. But the colour of the fur's the giveaway: the field vole directly above is significantly lighter brown than the water vole in the top picture.

New Camera, hooray!

There's been less activity in the ditch by Grocontinental since the diesel discharge, but I was pleased to see lots of feeding stations at the Edgeley Road end, plus a brief sighting of an actual water vole. I need to go further up, into the stretch by the lorry yard, and see what's going on there.

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The vole above's one of the ones in the field near my house.

Baby vole: the video

I'm guessing this animal is 3-4 weeks old.

Baby!

...and an adult.

Hooray for the Country Park

Female vole, I think, attending her latrine (off Edgeley Road).

The vole at Greenfields.

Water vole feeding signs.

Amazing encounter with a water vole last night: I'd taken my son to Greenfields Nature Reserve (Whitchurch Country Park) to see if he could catch some stickleback. While he was getting his net ready, I had a quick look at the banks and saw straight away some nibbled vegetation that looked water-voley, and then I found a feeding station. Well pleased, I led him down under the concrete bridge to do some fishing.

We'd only been there five minutes when a large vole shot out of the water right by our feet - see photo above - ran along the bank and then swam around coolly for a while before disappearing off downstream. At exactly the same time, a common shrew dashed along the ledge opposite.

This is all very good news as last year mink cleaned out this colony, and this particular bridge was marked by lots of mink scat. I really hope we can keep the mink from coming in off the canal this summer.