It's a year since I went down in the evening and saw the banks "alive with voles". There were two this evening - not the numbers there were in 2006 at this time, which to me implies last year was a peak and this year, for this colony, there's been a bit of a crash. Which is a normal, natural cycle, of course. Or maybe the babies are just later coming out, though I don't know why as it's been warm enough!
Perhaps last year's boom led to overcrowding, and some of them uprooted and moved up or down stream.
ReplyDeleteI'm not familiar with the walks round the brook. Are the banks fairly accessible in both directions? Is there a way of knowing that the voles have a presence somewhere this year that they didn't last?
We're due to start re-surveying later this month. Populations do shift about, as they expand and contract with breeding, and the Staggs Brook runs all the way through town.
ReplyDeleteThere were definitely babies about this time last year. But who knows, in another week there may be juvenile voles out on the banks. I'll keep watching.