Water Voles 2009

[shirl]

Originally Posted by Billy Wobble Dagger

Do the field voles swim much? I know they leave the same feeding signs and I assume the prints and droppings are similar.
BWD

Here is a pic of a field vole latrine in the middle of a clump of spike rush, they are very similar in colour and shape to water vole droppings, but are quite a bit smaller. Field voles can swim quite well, I saw one last year in quite a fast moving stream.

Shirl

[vole-woman]

Just to add, field vole droppings, when fresh, are a much lighter green than water vole ones:

[camo]

Originally Posted by vole-woman

Just to add, field vole droppings, when fresh, are a much lighter green than water vole ones:

Hi Vole Woman

Those droppings are very green. I have noticed with Water Voles the latrines vary in colour based on what they have been eating or do you think the colour is simply down to drying.

In this March shot the voles have been feeding on dried material through the late winter and the droppings are as brown as you would expect a Rat to be.



However in this May shot the Voles have been feeding on growing plant and the droppings are definetly the expected Green



Roy

[Billy Wobble Dagger]

Water vole droppings do vary greatly in colour, and as Roy says will be dependant on what they are eating. I think drying will make a difference but won't turn a light green in to a dull brown.

At least I can say I haven't seen any field vole droppings, they really are light and bright.


BWD

[shirl]

Here is a pic of a winter water vole latrine, green, brownish and red droppings - the latter presumably from eating berries - quite a mix of colours really

Shirl

[camo]

Hi Shirl

They are very red and it looks as though you can see some of the seeds from something like a hip. This thread has made me look forward to checking for Ratty at the weekend, i can't always see them but i have some reliable sites for finding their signature.

Has anyone any experienc of feeding Voles to get better photographs, I know they like an apple and presume a sweet apple is best. Do you cut up apple and where do you leave it, by a hole, a latrine or in a run?

Vole Woman's voles seem to be more open about their activities and I am lucky if I can get a brief glimpse.

Roy

[vole-woman]

My voles are slightly less shy than usual because they're in an urban environment, next to a busy car park. And Shirl's voles are ever braver; they graze between picnic tables!

If you do use apples, I'd say make it a one-off per area. Regular feeding in one place encourages rats, which will drive away the voles if they come in sufficient numbers. I have a continual battle to remove discarded fast food from the banks of my local stream, and sometimes I still have to get the pest controller out to cut down rat numbers (I once tried leaving the rats alone to do their stuff, and all the voles disappeared. They came back months later when the rats had gone ).

[shirl]

Hi Roy

I agree with Kate, quite often you don't have to tempt them out to feed on apples although they do rather like them. One of locals living by the canal cuts apples up into slices and leaves them near burrow holes but close to the water edge (so the voles can make a hasty escape if needed). Water voles eat well over 200 species of plants mixed in with berries, bark from trees and more so I would just pop along to your local haunt and wait. Hope you see them and I may just pop down to the canal again this afternoon for an hour.

Shirl

[camo]

Hi VW, Shirl

Thank you for your comments, sometimes impatience overtakes my desire to get a photograph. I know you are right and I will be very careful not to overdo apples.

I have 7 colonies I can watch although they are only probably within 2 metapopulations. All colonies are in rural settings and not prone to disturbance, and generally they are also all in heavy vegetation so my watching window is limited to a couple of months before vegetation is so thick you can not see anything. I suspect all have some Rats although only 2have so many rats as to be an issue. I do see occasional Ratties but invariably they are so nervous that it is a "plop" and a fleeting glimpse of a disappearing back. On one occasion I stood on one that was hidding in a run but fortunately I was well cushioned by vegetation.

In Bedfordshire we were very lucky to have a superb local co-ordinator who was responsible for introducing a number of people to the species but I am afraid the funding dried up and she moved on to other projects.

Roy

[camo]

Hi

I checked a few sites yesterday and today and picked up plenty of signs, not great feeding but my colonies are all quiet small. Some foot tracks but always difficult to say for sure that they are not Rat. I got lots of Otter tracks which took me away from WV's.

Do you agree with the following track identification.

Water Vole



Rat, tracks B and C



Roy