Water Shrew

I don't often get footage of water shrews, though I see them a lot. They are SO quick! Of the voles featured tonight, I think there are perhaps five individuals, the most distinctive being the juvenile with the white spot on its head which I saw as a much smaller baby.

September Voles

Bank vole

The water vole activity remains stubbornly nocturnal, though there've been no more otter sightings or particular signs of other predators. Video footage shows the colony's as busy as ever.

Meanwhile this dead bank vole was left on our drive by a cat, and I post the photo because it's useful to get a really good close look at the features which make it identifiable. Nose blunt and ears small = vole, no question. But it's too small for a water vole, which means (on mainland UK) either bank-vole or field-vole. So then you check the tail and here it's just over 50% of body length, which makes it definitely bank vole; in field voles the tail is much shorter. In fact sometimes field voles are called 'short-tailed voles'. There are subtle differences in fur colour and texture too, with bank voles being a little redder than their greyish cousins. Tail's the main identifying factor, though.

The Relative Sizes of Riparian Mammals

Mossfields, Edward German Drive, and Twitter Friends

 You'll have to click to enlarge the photo - he wasn't stopping!

 Evidence of feeding at Edward German Drive

 Above: droppings and feeding at Edgeley Road.

Below: at Edward German Drive.

 My Twitter friend Pooks, who I met for the first time in real life and by accident!

You meet some really nice people when you're into wildlife, and the chap above is one of them. He'd been passing on water vole sightings to me via Twitter for a while. But I had no idea who he was when I approached him on the bridge by the main town car park and asked him if he'd spotted any interesting wildlife in the stream. 'There are supposed to be water voles here,' he said. I told him he was right, and pointed out a burrow. At which point he turned to me and said: 'Hang on, are you on Twitter?' I said, 'Yes, I'm @volewriter!' And then we knew who we were.

After a good chat he went off towards the wood yard to see if there was any vole activity there, and I went in the opposite direction, looking for field signs that would tell me how the colony was doing further along the brook. But fifteen minutes later he came hurrying up to me to show me some lovely photos he'd got of a water vole behind Tesco's.

Later in the day I went to check on Mossfields (the back of Saddler's Walk), and the voles there look to be doing really well.

Stoat

A couple of days ago I was waiting for voles and a stoat appeared, slinking through the grass. It's been a week and a half since I had a good photo of a water vole, and it struck me that perhaps they'd changed their patterns to be more nocturnal and avoid the predator. There were still plenty of field signs about. I stuck the trail cam down and yes, it looks as if that's the case.

Which leads me to another question: when do water shrews ever sleep?

Assortment

Common shrew. The tail is half the length of the body.

Water shrew. Tiny eyes!

 Red-tailed bumblebee (I think)

 Cockchafer

 Water vole latrine

So Much Activity!

What a fantastic surprise to see these two otters on the trail cam. I've never seen an otter in the wild; this is the closest I've ever got. It's amazing that they would use such a tiny ditch. But then the field's full of wildlife, and I have found spraint there twice before. Thrilled!

Hedgehogs and Shrews

Here's the only half-decent footage I've managed to capture of a water shrew. Blink and you'll miss it.

The hedgehog clip is a poser, as it turns out I've mis-labelled what's going on. What I thought was the small hog's mother was in fact attempting to mount the little hog, so I can only assume this is a very small or juvenile sow being courted by a large adult boar. How old is she? How old do females have to be to start breeding?

What is the Deal with Snails?

 

A quick check in the Country Park reveals several latrines, but also the caches of nibbled snail shells I've seen before, some right next to water vole droppings. Is it water voles who are eating them? Or field voles, or rats? I would love to know.

And Water Shrews

 

The middle photo is the stream surface boiling around a busy little water shrew, the first live one I've seen this year.





Gathering Momentum

The banks are now riddled with burrows, like Swiss cheese. Some burrows are only a few inches apart to enable multiple choices of getaway. Meanwhile, here's the first water shrew of the year (unfortunately dead).