Struggling to Get Sightings, but the Voles are There

White Lion Meadow vole

 Common newt found under garden rubbish

 The ugliness of the baby coot

 Great Crested newt and friend

 Water vole feeding at Edgeley Road

 Kestrel at Edgeley Road

 The beginnings of a water vole latrine at Edgeley Road

 Reed bunting

 White Lion Meadow vole

Stunning pic of a water vole mum and its pup, taken by Steve Norris at the Sculthorpe Moor nature reserve. @sculthorpemoor

Voles and Amphibians

 About 50 frogs spawning in our garden pond.

A walk near Wood Lane Nature Reserve turns up a Great Crested Newt under a log!

Tonight's White Lion Meadow vole.

Why is a Vole like a Squid?

 The cloud of sediment that sometimes tells you you've just missed a water vole.

 Comma

 Common Blue

 Small Copper

 Red Admiral

 Skipper

 Juvenile common newts, found under an abandoned suitcase on a brownfield site (Mile Bank)

 Large White

 Holly Blue

 Chocolate Tip

 Privet Hawk moth

 Ragged Robin

 Grass snake

OK, water voles don't produce their own ink cloud, but they do rely on a cloud of sediment they kick up to escape from predators.

The Dairy Voles at Mile Bank, and the Importance of Brownfield Sites

 The wetland area by the old dairy at Mile Bank

 Water vole droppings in this area

 Great Crested Newts

 Toad

 Smooth Newt

 Four photos showing rubbish under which the Great Crested Newts were hiding.

 Baby smooth newts

This site at Mile Bank is up for a big housing development, so the builders had better be extremely careful to stay within the law. Not only are there Great Crested Newts on site, but water voles as well, both of them fully protected species. It is a terrific wetland area so I presume the developers as part of their mitigation measures will be creating replacement habitat elsewhere, or preserving these marshy sections and incorporating them into the new estate.