Page 26 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #06

UNDERGROUND, SOIL MOUNDS, disturbed
OVERGROUND: THE earth and bolt holes are all
VOLES THAT THINK clues to the presence of
THEY’RE MOLES fossorial voles. They are less
obvious or absent in winter.

BURROWS can
be quite complex
systems and often
stretch over 35m.
NEST CHAMBERS at the They are all on one
heart of the burrow system plane – tunnels
are around 50–60cm deep, don’t run under
with tunnels radiating from other tunnels.
them. Females have young
in late spring and summer.

FOOD STORES enable the
voles to stay below ground
in winter and during adverse
weather. They may comprise
grasses, sedges, seeds and a
range of other plant matter.

affects the water voles, individually and as a colony, tiny
Glasgow has probably been
radio transmitter collars will be fitted to monitor their home to water voles for
behaviour and daily range. hundreds of years but reliable
During the summer breeding season, Robyn continues, records have only been kept
the females use latrines to demarcate their territory. They in more recent times.
scratch at scent glands on their flanks and then drum down
on droppings with their hind legs to leave a signature scent
for passing males. Females patrol their territory regularly,
and the latrines can get quite large – a 20cm-long trail of
brown sludge, often seen under a grassy tussock. Robyn
has seen latrines as early as April, but not in 2018. Winter
still had the year in its teeth and was not letting go.

SNOWED IN
This March and April the snow kept on coming, and
postponed our visit a few times, but apparently it
doesn’t trouble the water voles. Snow insulates their
“wonderfully complex system of burrows”, and they’re
snug underground with everything they need – indoor
toilets, overwinter food stores and even spare bedding.
The chill drives us indoors for a lunch break, where
Illustration by Sandra Doyle/The Art Agency a certain patch of grass just “feels water vole-y”. Laurie
Robyn and Laurie swap water vole stories, nodding in
agreement about an intuition you develop, over time, that

remembers seeing water voles – or, more often, signs
of their presence – when he was a child in the Scottish
Borders exploring disused limekiln ponds in search of
frogspawn, great-crested newts and dragonflies. The
ponds were filled in when a new road was built, the rich
wetland habitat was lost, and the water voles disappeared.

26 BBC Wildlife