Burrow
Single starry pawprint
Above and below, latrines
Lots of water vole footprints.
Showing posts with label trackway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trackway. Show all posts
Friday, 26 May 2017
Sunday, 30 August 2015
Grocontinental
Shy vole
Above: two feeding stations and a piece of vole-cut stalk.
Latrine sites
Looks like a burrow but it's actually just a trackway through the grass into the water.
We've also been assured we can go back and survey the site at regular intervals in the future.
Monday, 4 June 2012
More on Habitat
Lots of Edgeley Road voles tonight. At least five, plus a water shrew
A water vole trackway, off Edgeley Road.
Water vole feeding station (also Edgeley Road)
I include this photo of a brook near Coton because at first glance it looks as if it would be ideal for water voles. The water's clear, not too fast-moving, the banks are soft and there's plenty of vegetation for hiding and food. But a closer look at the bottom will tell you it's no go - bare stony shingle covers the stream bed, and w-vs require silt or mud they can kick up to hide from predators when startled. Clear water makes them just too vulnerable.
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
Reading the banks
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Still a few weeks too early for real signs to emerge, I'd have thought, though a fortnight of days as warm as today would wake the water voles up I'm sure. But even in the absence of breeding latrines and ostentatious feeding stations it's not too hard to see where the w-vs have been active. There are occupied burrows, for instance, with nibbled grass round the outsides, and lots of slipways into the water. Have to say, though, these don't always come out so clearly in photographs; they're actually more obvious in the field.
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
Spring signs, and an old friend
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And here's our blackbird again - this must be his fourth year, I think.
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