A Round-up of Some Sites

Water vole signs at the Railwayman's Cottage (near Homebase)

Below, Black Park Road and water vole signs there.

 And lastly, these signs below are at the ditch in Broughall. 

buzzard

The Days are Growing Shorter

Common toad and Common Blues at Black Park Road

  

The ditch at Broughall, with some water vole droppings

Edgeley Road vole, and a latrine below.

I felt lucky to see this vole as they've been very shy lately. Also, there was a flash flood in the field, so I worried some might have been drowned. But no, they're hanging on, both here and at Broughall.

First Photo of 2015

 White Lion Meadow vole (next to the car park at Tesco)

 Pringles-tube-sized burrows at Greenfields (Whitchurch Country Park), the railway bridge near Homebase (Railwayman's Cottage), Broughall, Black Park Road and Edward German Drive.

Feeding, plus the only latrine I've seen so far this year (at Edward German Drive)

There are signs along the whole of this stretch.

Not a water vole, but a bank vole (I think) which swam out in front of me in the Country Park, and paddled about for a while.

The photo's poor because the light levels were low, but it was great to watch this healthy-looking water vole yesterday evening. At long last burrows are appearing, but not really any latrines yet. The Whitchurch water voles are really behind in their schedule this year. Let's hope the warm weather spurs them on.

A Few Tentative Signs

I brought Y-Boy in for weighing and re-marking, and he's almost a kilogram!

 Water vole feeding at the back of Saddler's Walk (Mossfields)

 Above, invisible skylarks, and below, lapwings out at Broughall

 Water vole prints in the mud at Broughall

A burrow and a buzzard at the Railwayman's cottage near Homebase.

No water vole colony in Whitchurch seems to have woken up much yet, though there are a few feeding signs at Mossfields, prints at Broughall, and a couple of burrows near Homebase. This gives me a bit more hope that things are generally late, rather than one colony having suffered some sort of collapse. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed. It's been cold here and the frogs haven't even begin to think about mating.

A Few Pawprints

 Lapwings in the field

Water vole paw prints in the mud at Broughall

End of Season Round-up, Part 1

Droppings at Broughall

 Edgeley Road vole

 Three sets of droppings from Edgeley Road

 Feeding and droppings at Mossfields (Saddler's Walk).

Latrine under the bridge by the car park at White Lion Meadow (near Tesco)

Sightings are hard to come by now, as the population disperses, but the field signs show a presence on many sites. The colony at Mossfields (Saddler's Walk) seems steady - this will need a special eye keeping on it when the land is developed for houses. Broughall is busy with voles and I'm not surprised as the habitat there is excellent. And though numbers are a little lower than last year, the voles at Edgeley Road seem fine too. As usual there is activity in the ditch at White Lion Meadow.

New sites logged this year include Ash Grange, Mile Bank and the Llangollen canal between Ellesmere and Whittington. In addition, it's been good to get a sighting at Yocking's Gate after a long absence of records.

On the down side, the voles seem to have gone from the Prees Branch canal; I can only assume mink predation's the problem there. A great shame as it was an excellent, strong colony. Similarly the ditch by Grocontinental has suffered disruption by building work this year and at least some of the habitat there has been deserted. I hope they return in 2015.