Out at Coton

 Water vole from Edgeley Road

 Reed NOT eaten by voles - end cut straight.

 Reed eaten by water voles - 45 degree cut at the end

 Advanced poo-spotting

 Ideal habitat

 Albert looks down a burrow and comes nose to nose with a vole

Very freshly dead water vole. We don't know what killed it.

A positive day's surveying out in the Coton/Whixall area. We had three live sightings, and found evidence of water voles across the three lots of land we examined, some areas being richer than others. Three ponds we looked at had voles living in them, even though some of the banks were quite shaded. 

The ditches proved more variable: where there was plenty of vegetation and no weeds had been sprayed, the voles were active and happy. But where the ditches had been dredged and the cover removed, and there was evidence of herbicide use, the results were poor. Careful management of the land is crucial if we're going to help this animal survive, I think.

Better Shrew Photos

Coincidentally a friend of mine found a freshly dead water shrew out at Whixall, so here are some photos showing the animal detail. Note the silvery sheen on the dark fur in photo one, and typically pale ventral area also.

Nicky and her Enormous Vole

A massive vole Nicky once rescued from a cat.

A female great crested newt that lives in the cellar. Nicky has a licence to handle them.

A toad, also from the cellar.

Mating toads, and spawn in the pond.

Toad spawn.

Prints along the banks at Waylands Road, where a council workman told me he'd seen a water vole this morning.
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I was lucky enough to get a look round Nicky Hunter's lovely wildlife garden at Whixall. Really I was looking for water vole signs and we did find some likely burrows, though the search was pretty much academic since Nicky sees them regularly swimming across her pond. There's a good population of field voles, and also various amphibians - see above. A nature-lover's paradise, basically!

White Lion Meadow - a photo at last

Not a brilliant picture, I grant you, but the first one since May. There was so much nibbled watercress under the bridge, I thought I had a chance of seeing a water vole if I stood there long enough.
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Added later - went to check the Prees Branch Canal this evening and found plenty of water vole evidence, including a feeding station made of chewed horsetail. I know w-vs eat over 200 species of plants, but I've never seen them chop up horsetail before. There were about four little piles of it, so the vole must have been keen. On the drive back I stopped near Dobson's Bridge ( http://staggsbrook.blogspot.com/2008/08/voles-where-ive-not-seen-them-before.html ) and saw another water vole swimming in the brook there.

Comparison of field vole and water vole latrines

The same brook where I saw kingfishers on Saturday.

Nibbled snail shells near water vole feeding

Water vole latrine, old droppings and fresh

Water vole latrine

Field vole latrine (plus feeding)

Small toad

We did a survey of a farm in Whixall today, which is the furthest out we've gone from Whitchurch - we're trying to find out how far this meta-population extends below the town. As usual we found lots of evidence of field voles, so I include a photo for comparison.

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Lots of water vole latrines, plus feeding on reeds, fallen crab apples and possibly snails. All of it was fresh, too, as the brook had flooded recently. The habitat is ideal, and the farmer, who is really cool, says he'll try and clear out a ditch to provide even more space for the voles to expand into.

Voles where I've not seen them before

The bridge over the ditch just before Dobson's (canal) Bridge

Excellent habitat due to good fencing.

Just-about-visible vole.

A nice feeding station, with some droppings towards the bottom edge.

Tell-tale cuts.

If you enlarge the photo above by clicking, you should see several stalks cut off at an angle.

This (above) is what happens if you don't check your rafts regularly enough. I usually go down every 7-14 days - the more often you can look, the better - but with being on holiday I missed a week. The result's a confusion of prints that aren't really readable, though I think I can see some water vole and some brown rat in there.

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Plenty of water vole feeding going on all along the top section; less lower down, towards the marina, but no sign at all of any mink.

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Then, on the way back home I stopped by the stream just before Dobson's Bridge, and saw a vole pretty much straight away. The farmer who owns the field by this brook has helpfully set his fence well back so there's a good margin of unpoached, untouched bank, and it looks to me like a place that's teeming with wildlife.