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Water Voles - Caldy's hidden treasure

Richard Castell has monitored these delightful animals in the park. The proof of their presence has been featured in the noticeboard by the car park: the beautiful photographs of our resident water vole one of which is reproduced here.

Immortalised as Ratty in Kenneth Grahame's "Wind in the Willows", the water vole is a shy animal about the size of a rat but on close inspection it has quite a different appearance to its cousin. The water vole is slightly smaller, has a shorter, furry tail, a blunter snout and its ears are barely visible through the chestnut coloured fur (take a look at photographs currently on the car park notice board). They are predominantly vegetarian, one survey recording 227 plant species being eaten by water voles. They generally remain well hidden in bankside vegetation but sometimes you may see one swimming high across open water, something they are quite proficient at considering they don't have webbed feet. The breeding season for the animals in between April and September when each female will have about four litters (4-6 young per litter) in a nest situated underground in an extensive network of bankside tunnels.

The water vole was once common throughout the British Isles inhabiting slow flowing rivers and brooks, canals and ponds. Research in the late 1980s showed that the species had experienced a steady decline since 1900 caused by changes in land use and river management - resulting in the fragmentation and isolation of water vole populations. Once a population becomes isolated it becomes particularly vulnerable to predators; the culprit in the case of the water vole being the American Mink which has escaped from, and been released (by animal activists) from fur farms. Sadly, the decline in the species accelerated quite dramatically during the 1980s and 1990s and survey results show that it has disappeared from approximately 80% of sites where it used to occur, awarding it the unfortunate status of Britain's most rapidly declining species of mammal. This has resulted in the legal protection of the species, currently only to its places of shelter (its burrows), but a forthcoming revision is likely to extend protection to the animal itself.

Following the discovery of a latrine site and feeding platform on the pond last October I have had a closer look around Caldy Nature Park for further signs of water voles. I have found lots of evidence in the form of feeding remains, droppings, burrows and even a sighting of one on the pond very early one morning. The highlight for me though has been spending ten minutes with one vole just two metres away, busily eating apple I had placed at one of its feeding stations. Admittedly, I was concealed in a photographic hide (for two hours, with cramp) but 10 minutes up close & personal and the photographs I took were incredibly rewarding.

The population in the park seems to be holding on

Evidence along the brook suggests there was once a strong colony of voles but due to a combination of increased disturbance by humans and dogs, and competition from rats, they have been forced into the quieter backwaters. The population in the park appears to be holding on but is by no means large or secure. However, it is encouraging to find that the park is able to sustain this diminutive little creature that thas suffered one of the most catastrophic declines of a species ever known in the UK - a far more rapid demise that that suffered by the well documented and more charismatic mega-beasts of Africa and Asia, and it has happened right under our noses!

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