I've gone suddenly from seeing five or six voles in a half hour space, to seeing just two in an hour, and then last night I sat for an hour and a half and only saw a water shrew. In past years that sudden drop in sightings has panicked me and made me think there must be a predator about, but now I realise it's the natural pattern of peak-and-dispersal, where juveniles are packed off to find new territories, or occasionally pack their parents off and take over. There doesn't seem to be a lot of sentimentality over family bonds in water vole colonies!
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