Mad Celandine Feeding Frenzy

Why Water Voles Leave Starry Footprints

 A good example of the starry-paw formation!

Keenly Waiting for Other Colonies

The action's still all at White Lion Meadow, though I did hear a vole crunching reeds today at Edgeley Road...

As We Move Towards April

 Typical starry prints

Tell-tale Prints

It's been a couple of weeks since I've had a sighting, but I knew the voles were about because of their paw prints in the mud. Early in the year this is sometimes the only field sign, and it's not always reliable because rat prints can look very similar. Water vole paw prints tend to be more splayed, though - what we call "starry". And here's a vole to prove ownership.

Still Shy

Another water vole sighting at White Lion Meadow, plus some feeding outside the wood yard.

Below, I came across this polecat that had been killed on the road, so stopped to double-check it wasn't an otter or mink (which you have to report). I took the opportunity to photograph its paws which are very powerful, and its fuzzy tail.

First Water Vole of 2018!

 A White Lion Meadow water vole. 

Below, pictures of the great crested newts that live on the brownfield site at Mile Bank Road, which is about to be built on.

Always nice to see the first vole of a new year: this one was at White Lion Meadow car park, which is usually the first colony to show.

In other news, the clearing of the old dairy factory at Mile Bank Road is about to start, and I was able by chance to speak today to someone from the developers. She told me that the team were all very clear about protecting the newts on the site, and that a lot of the vegetation-removal work was going to be done with hand tools, that they were leaving the bat roosts, that three ponds would be created in the housing development plus habitat improvement work of the banks, and a wild area leaving. Here are some images of the project on the Ainscough Strategic Land Projects website. Nothing about the detail she told me, unfortunately, but perhaps it's on the Shropshire Council Planning page.