It's not always easy to distinguish rat footprints from water vole - I glimpsed a rat while I was taking these pictures! - but I reckon these starry prints are our voles.
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No trolleys in the water at the moment, though I still haven't spoken to the manager about his plans. Then again, we've all been busy. I'll pursue the situation in the New Year.
6 comments:
They're nice - are they on the banks at White Lion?
I'm afraid we've had a rat popping into the garden the last couple of days - I think I've been too generous with the bird's fat balls.
And a happy New Year to the brook!
Thanks! Yes, we think we've got a ratty visitor - all sorts of diggings going on round our pond. So I've set the mink raft up to see if I can get definitive prints, and if it turns out to be rat scrattings, the next stage is live trapping and a long car ride.
The prints are WLM.
Great prints!
Happy new year to you, your family and the voles.
Hope you all have a splendid 2008.
Nik xx
Thanks, Nik! And to you.
I look after river in the Peak District of Derbyshire. My team and I would have laid diamonds that we had no mink on our patch. The Water Vole Lady (Helen Perkins Derbyshire Wildlife Trust) got us to check the rafts she gave us. In no time we had 9 mink. Shows you what keepers know!
I dont believe the crash in numbers was entirely down to mink. We used to find moribund Water Voles when the numbers were really falling away around 1996. The EA asked us to drive down with the next one we found but when we caught it, they didn't want it.
Warren
http://141207.blogspot.com/
That's so sad. But at least you're on the case now. The good thing about the patch of brook I watch is that it's right in the town centre and you're unlikely to get mink in such a busy place.
I wonder what was wrong with those early voles?
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