Saturday 17 March 2012

Not for the Squeamish - Life and Death at Greenfields

 Celandine is out

 We lost count of the water vole burrows at Greenfields reserve. Each hole is about the diameter of a Pringles tube.

 Typically starry water vole prints under the concrete bridge. We also found two otter spraints here.

 Water vole droppings up by the viewing point.

My brilliant litter picker - the best piece of voling equipment I possess.When vegetation's chopped into substantial lengths like this, there's no confusion with daintier field vole feeding. This is definitely water vole.

 One of about a dozen dismembered frogs we found along a 150m stretch inside the reserve. Otter?

 Couldn't resist this picture of my own garden frogs and spawn. 7 clumps so far.

 Water vole prints along Edward German Drive.

 'Vole-scaping' of the banks at Edward German Drive.

 Fairly sure this is a water vole print at White Lion Meadow, near Tesco. However there are a lot of rats here so it's sometimes hard to be sure.


Renewing my water vole platform as last year's rotted in the water and fell apart. It's a length of thin board with four pieces of dowel screwed into the corners so as to provide a bit of anchorage against the bank. On the top side is a short nail (covered here with a bit of plastic for safety) on which I can stick a piece of apple: this is an experiment. In previous years some unsporting voles have nabbed their apple slices and swum off immediately, so my hope is this year's voles might hang around while they have their photos taken.

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