.Last year all my sightings in the field off Edgeley Road were based around one particular bend in the stream. This year, though there've been plenty of prints showing the voles are using the bend as a thoroughfare, there have been no signs that anyone's claimed it as a territory. Till this week, and a large latrine on the bank plus some feeding. I waited twenty minutes but didn't see anything, so moved down to the lower bend where I saw two voles fighting, and then down to another stretch where I watched what might have been nest-repair or -building. Strange how colonies shift up and down, so that a spot will be favoured one year, and abandoned another.
I used to work in an office next to the Bridgewater Canal in Daresbury, near Warrington. We had a water vole make it into the office one time. At least I think it was a vole, looked very similar to the pictures here. Didn't seem any the worse for wear once it was outside again.
ReplyDeleteAndy
Gosh! I know people who've had them in the garden, so it doesn't surprise me. Individual small mammals can be very bold, plus water voles are very short-sighted!
ReplyDeleteDid you provide that apple for him? Looks like he's enjoying it!
ReplyDeleteI did. It's my ambition to hand-feed a vole.
ReplyDelete