Above: two baby water voles from the same litter. Below, the mum.
Iain Green's capture of a water vole eating a stickleback.
I could see one of the baby voles was making a hearty meal of something, but it wasn't till I got back home and examined the photos closely that I realised it was eating a hoverfly or wasp. I was amazed! I've never seen this behaviour before. Water vole expert Derek Gow says there are Victorian records of water voles feeding on insects, and Iain Green once saw an adult vole eating a fish (I reproduce that picture with permission). In S A Ryder's book, there's a note about observing a pregnant female vole eat a dead perch, for the protein. But I imagine its quite rare behaviour. My guess is that the baby found the fly or wasp already dead and just 'had a go'.
Protein is protein!
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