Hedgehog Time!

 Otter spraint above, and below some otter prints from Whitchurch Country Park (Greenfields)

Water voles prints (I hope), also from the country park.

Put the trail cam out last night on a hunch, and got the year's first hedgehog footage. The one in the shed's still asleep, but this wild one was eating hungrily all night. I'm pleased to say that when it turned round, it was Rainbow, the hog who lives across the road.

Early Signs

 Field at Broughall - great habitat

 Broughall water vole droppings and paw prints

 The field off Edgeley Road, and below...

 ...two burrows

 ...and more paw prints

Gorgeous mugs from British Wildlife Gifts  http://www.britishwildlifegifts.co.uk/

The weather's so vile it's been hard to get out much, but early signs in two areas look hopeful. The stream which goes across the fields at Broughall already has small latrines on the banks, and I'm just starting to see a few burrows in the colony off Edgeley Road. That last area's been flooded, though, so I suspect that will have had an impact on numbers. We'll have to see.

Water Voles and Flooding

The Environment Agency removing unlawful timber revetments along the bank at Edward German Drive. This will help protect properties with better flood management, and also benefit water voles.

 Further up the brook at Edward German Drive: water vole paw prints.

 The brook by the railway bridge burst its banks last week. I hope some of the voles have escaped up the higher bank.

 Water vole footprints at White Lion Meadow (near Tesco).

 The flooded field off Edgeley Road. There are are no high banks into which the voles can climb out of the way of the water, so I'm hoping they've been able to take refuge in the sedge.

At the moment there are no signs at all in the field off Edgeley Road, unless this photo above is a burrow. Water voles don't usually leave spoil heaps outside, though, so it could be mole or rat.

I was dismayed and cross to hear on the radio a few days ago Michael Eavis name-check water voles as one of the causes of flooding. I know: how bizarre can you get? His argument was that 'rivers aren't being dredged properly because of environmentalists wanting to protect riparian habitat', and that 'dredging alone is the solution to managing extreme rainfall'.

He's wrong about dredging, as this article explains:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/30/dredging-rivers-floods-somerset-levels-david-cameron-farmers but he's also wrong to reference water voles as they don't even live along broad, fast-flowing rivers, so they're just not part of the equation here.

In fact the one place in Whitchurch that's flooded this winter happens to be immediately downstream from a channel that's been dredged by the landowner, although I think the immediate cause was a blockage under the bridge.

I can understand Eavis wanting to look for scapegoats, but that's not the way to solve the problem. Unusual dramatic flooding is bad for everyone, voles included, and needs a joined-up strategy from a forward-thinking, intelligent Minister for the Environment. One who understands that what's bad for wildlife is bad for humans too.

The RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch - a family affair

Want to get your kids/teens/reluctant partner involved in counting garden birds? Offer sneaky incentives. As well as stocking up with bird food for the survey hour, I always get in various treats for the rest of the family. I don't insist anyone joins me, but I keep the kitchen warm and have some comedy playing on the radio or iPod, and one by one they come and pick up the binoculars and start spotting. It's a very comfy way to birdwatch but the survey results are important so at the same time we feel we're doing a useful job. This year we had very few birds and only eight species. That doesn't matter, though. The RSPB needs all the records they can get hold of.

Our 2014 results?
5 jackdaws
1 coal tit
4 house sparrows
4 wood pigeons
2 blackbirds
2 robins
2 blue tits
1 dunnock

At Broughall Again

 Linnets

 Meadow pipit

 Reed bunting

 Water vole prints and droppings

Buzzard

Another walk round Broughall, and two personal firsts for me - the pipit and the linnets. Also, not being a birder, I had no idea you got flocks of reed buntings in fields. 

This area, as well as being home to water voles, is teeming with birds, which makes me think perhaps the farmland is organic.

Good Start to the New Year

Across the road from the lay-by at Broughall is a public footpath across fields. Took a walk across there this afternoon and came across a ditch with water vole prints all over the banks plus this latrine. It's a new colony to me, and one I'll be happily keeping an eye on this summer.

Goodbye to 2013

 Snug

 The ditch by Grocontinental as it looks this month

 Trackway leading through the reeds to the water

Various water vole footprints: at Grocontinental, in the field off Edgeley Road (see extreme bottom right of photo) and some from last Feb to show the clear starry shape of the paws.

There's very little doing vole-wise this month - I don't expect to see any real activity till February or March - but there's clearly still water vole presence in the two fields off Edgeley Road. W-vole paw prints are very similar to rat so I would be cautious about claiming any of these photos were definitive proof. However, I have found them in areas where there were lots of voles in the summer and autumn, and they do look pretty star-shaped to me.