Field vole droppings - water voles' are twice the size.
Sometimes an area looks brilliant for water voles, but a survey throws up hardly anything and it's hard not to feel a little disheartened. Emma Broad, biodiversity officer for the Wrexham area, organized a survey day round Pulford, and pretty much all my group found was field vole latrines and feeding. Rob Strachan's group discovered one or two water vole droppings, but also a mink den, which probably explains why such good habitat's going unused. At least remedial action can be taken now, so in a sense the survey was a success.
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Some nice views of a pipistrelle (?) round my back door last night. Too fast for a photo, though!
3 comments:
You forgot to mention how you got pulled into a ditch by a clumsy newbie! This is a great blog Kate - thanks again for showing me the ropes & hope to see you soon :)
Ha ha! Nice to hear from you, Sue. If you fancy any more survey days, we're running two in July, details here: http://www.woodlanereserve.co.uk/voleevents.htm
I was thinking about you today, actually, because I told you erroneously that water voles liked to have enough water to swim in, and that seems not to be the case. We've found ditches since then with just puddles, and plenty of genuine water vole signs.
Yes, I'll be along to those I expect. It seems that every time it looks like a statement can be confidently made, the wee critters fox us by proving it wrong! Like the water thing and also the belief that field voles don't make latrines! I think they're reading your blog and changing their habits just for a prank . . .
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