Tuesday 4 November 2008

Challenge six: water vole watching


Check this out, two challenges in one day! Well as there are only two full days of my Autumnwatch adventure left I thought it was time to pick up the pace a little. So today I took up Australian Charlotte's challenge, all the way from Caines to see how many different water voles can you see in one hour on the reedbed boardwalk crossing in front of the villa and is there anyway you can identify them individually to discount any double counting? Photographic evidence please!!
So armed with my woefully under-powered digital compact camera and a large mug of tea I made the short trip from my home at the Villa down to the boardwalk where the water voles live. I once wrote an essay about water voles, most of which I seem to have completely forgotten...I do however have a strong and enduring memory that, on occasion, water voles climb trees after hawthorn berries and, not being entirely built for the arboreal life, sometimes get stuck. So I added the branches and tree tops to my visual scanning as I sat quietly for an hour around dusk.

Now I'm sorry to say that photographic evidence of my success is completely lacking, due in part to the aforementioned pitiful equipment but mostly to the shy and secretive nature of the water vole which made photographing the ones I did see near impossible. But during the hour I counted a total of five actual sightings - scurrying through the reeds, swimming frantically across the open water and nibbling away happily, and about three extra audio-only voles with their unmistakable 'plop'! The picture on the right here is of water vole poo, which I'm afraid is the closest I can get to evidence for you Charlotte. I tried! And below is a much lovelier picture by Kevin Cook of the DWT so you can see what a water vole actually looks like. They're lovely animals and having never seen them before in the flesh I really enjoyed this challenge, thank you Charlotte!


3 comments:

  1. Hi Martha ~ Getting back to 'regular life' is going to seem very strange to you after all of your adventures! I've just found out that Ratty, in Kenneth Grahame’s “The Wind in the Willows”, wasn’t a rat at all but really a water vole!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Martha, Glad that your patience was rewarded and that you did get to see some Arvicola terrestris. Interesting photographic evidence; how can it possibly be corroborated? Enjoy the remainder of your stay.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Glo - yes, a famous case of mis-identification! Don't talk about 'regular life' I'm still happily believing I now live here and will never have to leave...

    And Charlotte what suspicion! I'm afraid my word and the corroboration of warden Chris will have to be enough verification that this is GENUINE water vole poo. It's not a common sight you know, we should all feel very honoured!

    ReplyDelete