Saturday 26 August 2017

Nesting





I'm getting nightly sightings but still nothing in the day. It was lovely to capture footage of this nesting vole, though. I've seen voles gathering bedding before, but never managed to catch it on camera. Not sure whether this is a female getting ready for a litter, or whether voles of both sexes gather material this way. Does anyone know?

Edited: yes, Derek Gow, patron saint of water voles does. He says: "Both sexes are perfectly capable of building nests. Males underground tend to avoid females as they are pretty belligerent. We don't know if the males play a direct role in rearing young but they are tolerant of them." So this vole in the video clip could be male or female. 

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