Return of the Water Voles

[Chris Plumb]

At last some good news??

 

There is a storm drain 100 yards in front of where I live. It has been the home for voles ever since we moved here in 1987. That was until a couple of years ago when they disappeared within a year. Well there back!!! I've just been for a quiet stroll and in a 200 yards or so of bank spotted 5 individuals. As many as I've spotted in the past 5 years (& I often look out for them!) There has been some efforts to trap mink in the Kennet valley over the last 18 months - maybe this is the first sign those efforts are beginning to work?

 

Whatever they're a welcome sight!

 

Chris

 

[ 14 April 2002, 06:24 PM: Message edited by: Chris Plumb ]

[chesters1]

i took this photo as i thought we had voles returning

as you see its just a small version of the beasts that are in plaque proporsions at my lake ,why dont mink eat rats?

[chesters1]

strange no photo ,try again ,aha use a jpeg

[Chris Plumb]

chesters1:

,why dont mink eat rats?

I think they probably do These were definitely voles however.

 

Chris

[chesters1]

we need something that eats them ,one was so large (it was having a fight? with another one)it bumped into the rod pod and nearly knocked it over :mad: they are so big that some cannot get into the rat poison boxes and are enlarging the hole

[OP-JB]

Plop!

They are definatly on the increase again on my rivers. One positive to draw from their cataclismic demise is that we will not take them for granted again. One negative is that no-one knows why they crashed( O.K. the mink had a few, but we have never tollerated them on our streches and still no bank voles)

One interesting fact is their homes in the bank are heavily protected and yet some yobs shoot them and they are within the law!

 

Op -JB

[hunter]

[YOBS SHOOT THEM] Well i'm an airgun yob,do i shoot them!,NO i can sit and watch them for ages.

Some YOBS call them rats maybe this is where they are going wrong,not knowing a rat from a vole.Herons take a lot of water voles so its not all down to mink and YOBS.

[Alan Fawcett]

The area of the Sow i helped clean last year is home to a number of water voles & long may they stay.

 

Hunter i am also an airgun enthusiast but i can't understand why when Op-Jb said Yobs you seem to have taken offence at it??

 

Just like with all sports (fishing included) there are undisireables, there are yobs who walk round with air guns, willing to shoot anything that moves (I've even seen youths shooting at shoals of fish), just because he said yobs it doesn't IMO read that all airgunners are yobs.

 

[ 14 April 2002, 11:30 PM: Message edited by: ALAN FAWCETT ]

[Steve Burke]

At Wingham water voles are very common and the bank of one of our streams is littered with their holes. In fact we've been asked to supply them to other nearby nature reserves for reconolisation. The reason we've got them and the other sites haven't is that we have no mink, which decimate the population.

 

I've also had a couple of members complain about "rats", but the nearest a water vole comes to being a rat is the name "Ratty" in "The Wind in the Willows". They really are cute little creatures, and although I've yet to get one feeding out of my hand I have had them take sweetcorn off my boot!

[poledark]

I had one feeding on hempseed and I decided to pull it's tail! It just squeaked at me and carried on feeding.

A couple of other anglers came along and I showed them the vole and pulled it's tail again, master vole decided this was to much and jumped in the river and swam to the other side

 

Den