A glimpse of water vole

[+Derbyshire Dave]

Don't get me started on water voles. I live half a mile from the Cromford Canal, and for the first 15 years we lived here you could almost guarantee you could see water voles pretty much every time you went for a walk. Then, during the foot and mouth epidemic, when access was limited, it was thought that mink had been through. After a while they recovered to a degree and you could still see them regularly.

 

Then the footpath by the canal was re-laid with a hard, tamped down surface. This makes it great for cyclists, of which we now get hundreds, but we now very rarely see a vole. I think the tamping down collapsed tunnels. That's truly awful.

 

I hadn't seen a vole for about a year until yesterday morning, driven out of bed early by the heat, I walked down, and near the Cromford end of the canal managed to see and capture on my phone this little chap.

 

 

 

[Bottletopburly]

 Nice spot dave haven't seen one in years we used to see them as kids in the local brook ,probably cleared out by mink shame really as the council leave it wilded out now and would be ideal more now than when i was a kid. 

[+Ibbo]

Been seeing them on a regular basis for the last 3 or 4 years my side of the tunnel.

 

There was a conserted anti mink effort a few years ago.

[+Derbyshire Dave]

3 hours ago, Ibbo said:

Been seeing them on a regular basis for the last 3 or 4 years my side of the tunnel.

 

There was a conserted anti mink effort a few years ago.

That's really good to hear Steve. I presume the tunnel is the Butterley tunnel?

[+Ibbo]

9 minutes ago, Derbyshire Dave said:

That's really good to hear Steve. I presume the tunnel is the Butterley tunnel?

yep

[philjay]

Apparently we have mink hunts round here twice a year. I think the last time I saw one was on the Cromford canal but it was years ago