The Owl in t'Ole, the Vole's 'Oles and a Coypu's rear end....

We've been having a lot of Tawny Owl [Strix aluco] Chouette hulotte activity over the past few weeks...
regular trilling sessions in the hangar...
and male and female calling from by the river...
and the male doing "territorial tours" at intervals throughout the night....
so we put the new wide-angle "piege photographique" out by the owl box.
We decided to get a wide-angle as  a second one...
as the narrow angle of the first gave too many triggered videos with nowt in them!!

This is a real stake-out!

Initially, we recorded nothing... the camera was too far from the box!!

Now in a much better position....

Once I had repositioned the apparatus...
ie: banged the wooden stake in the ground in a different position...
not difficult given how boggy the ground is at the moment...
then mounted the camera on top...all highly complex!
Result!!

And this is the view from the camera

The hole has changed its appearance...

Did you knock?

Hey, you...robot...

...did YOU knock!?

She...because of the size...
we'd noticed last year that she seemed to have difficulty getting through the hole...
designed for a MUCH sleeker species... a Barn Owl...
she was being mobbed by a lot of small passerines....
and, fortunately for us, she was up an hour or two earlier than normal!!

VIDEOs:
The first shows intense activity by the mobbing crowd....
the second shows the Owl reacting to the mobbing.

So, on the Faune Touraine site...
Pauline has been able to record evidence of nesting....
for the second year on the trot!!
We just need to record the male arriving with food...
and it would be nice to record the young this year...
another reason for the wide-angle version!
Dad looked very confused last year when he turned up...
with a nice vole... and there was no one at home!!

Meanwhile the first camera trap has also been busy...
about three weeks back we saw watervole activity...
Southern Watervoles [Arvicola sapidus] Campagnol aquatique....
two individuals jumping into the river...
again, I put the camera in the wrong position...
expecting riverbank activity, I placed it on the longère side of the millstream...
result...
a lot of nada!!

Then, just over seven days ago, I took a different route back from the owl box...
mainly to check on signs of deer activity...
and, drawing level with the sighting of the voles, I saw this at the side of the path...

This is a view down on top of a Water Vole runway

The run continues along the bottom here...
and the three dark areas above, are where it has sat and fed.

A well trodden vole width path, leading from the old ford, comes up to this feeding area.
So....

Yes... it is active this close to the house

This is the camera on tripod....
I have extended the column, because the pictures below....
taken at half the height....
aren't showing the vole clearly enough.

The camera was quickly repositioned...
and on Leap Day we got results... both night and day!!
First we got a night shot....

Just triggered the camera...

And then some daytime feeding.... watervoles are active day and night...

The vole is at the left....
this will help you spot it in the video below.

Then, yesterday, we had a very good daytime sighting...
a vole came bobbing along in the coffee "au lait" floodwater...
and swung into the bank opposite the lounge windows.
Cue frantic dash for camera and repositioning...
out it came and continued downstream...
click... click... click...
it went under the bridge....
I played "Pooh" voles and ran to the front door...
click... click... click...
and it swung into the bank again...
and vanished into the undergrowth.
Got a good few pix...
check...

Oh! OH!
No....OH NO!!
Aarrrgh!

I am using the camera on manual at the moment...
it was set for bright sunlight...
I was taking pix of the Siskins a few days back...
when we had some sun!
All the shots were black.... my fault entirely....
should have taken a test exposure...
just before the little blighter re-appeared...
and taken note of what the camera was trying to tell me!
It has happened before...
it WILL happen again... of that I am certain!
As will the opposite... the all white shots!!

But, where that little vole swung into the bank and vanished....
was right where the well used path to the feeding area begins...
it may well have taken a selfie?!
We won't know until I've checked the camera....
and I am only checking every few days to avoid too much disturbance.
In the meantime... the coypu exited left!

This is a Coypu kit... so much larger than a Muskrat or a Watervole.

Posted by Tim
for....

Well, well, well... we're in a vole lotta trouble again?

We took our WorkAwayers to Chédigny to see the roses on Sunday...
they are a couple of lively Japanese who are honeymooning around the world...
before settling down to the nitty-gritty of life.

A rather industrial window for Chédigny...
but rather nice all the same!

Whilst they wandered around looking at the roses...
still wonderful, despite being visibly frazzled by last weeks heat...

Just a few of our favourites...
top to bottom:
Nuage Parfumé
Sir Cedric Morris
Westerland

....Pauline and I sat by the Lavoir and listened to the sound of the bees in the flowers and the rippling Ruisseau d'Orfeuil....
the stream that runs through the lavoir and joins the Indrois further down.

We had some fun people watching...
everyones' eyes were on the roses...
and it being the "weekend of gardens"....
in the UK as well as in France...
there were crowds enjoying the roses and the very strong sunshine!!

An awful lot of pictures were being taken...
and I have decided that there is nothing really more amusing than watching someone trying to see their iPad screen and take a photograph in strong sunlight....
I was very tempted to snap a picture of one rather large elderly gentleman in cargo shorts...
using a towel over his head and fullsized iPad....
rather like a Victorian using a "plate" camera...
I don't know where the camera is on the back of an Eye-Pad...
but he was having much trouble at that end of his "arrangement"...
presumably because the towel kept blocking the lens!
Perhaps I should have videoed it for posterity and U-Bend...

I decided to compare the ruisseau with our millstream....
it was wonderfully clear and hadn't had a catchment-full of mud poured down it...

Directly in front of the bench...

I was hoping for shots of damselflies...
but none were to be seen...
the environment was suitable though...
the stream beyond the lavoir was rich in vegetation...

Upstream... beyond the lavoir
looks choked to us... but will give both cover and food to river livers!

and similar conditions downstream, beyond the bridge...

And downstream...
equally rich, not as choked though...
but still perfect cover.
The rosebuds in the foreground and the flowers at the top....
are all part of the same rose... Kiftskate...
a vast climber.

...over which feet tramped and paused only to photograph the lavoir and another vast Kiftskate rose that enveloped it....
which was sniffed by many but to me has no scent...
just beauty!

Suddenly I saw movement... something scuttling... it was a Southern Water Vole [Arvicola sapidus] Campagnol amphibie....
I watched it scuttle and swim... past me and the rosegazers...
as I tried to get the camera switched on and ready...
nada!!

That wouldn't have happened in analogue days...
take a picture, wind on, fresh bullet up the spout...
but with the digital compact I have, there is no "sleep" mode and...
if you choose the option to stay on 30 minutes... the maximum...
it eats batteries working the screen...
you need a bagful of ready charged spares to get through a day!!
My SLRs, however, go to sleep and are ready at the press of the shutter button

No, by the time the camera was ready, the vole was under the bridge.

Many "pardons" as I ran in front of rose-snappers and to the other side and leant over...
trying not to damage myself or the rose...
not... a... sign!!

No way could Pauline report that on Faune Touraine...
in the middle of a "town" full of people, such a record just would not be accepted...
although there a many instances in the UK where they have been seen in town streams and streamlets...
in fact there are photographs of Water Voles with shopping trolleys taken near a branch of Sainsbury's somewhere "opp t'north" [##]...
Pauline came to look at the wonderful clear stream... and just then another, larger water vole came through...
this time I got some photos... not good, as you must admit...

Unmistakeably a vole... no visible ears...
and the dark tail, only half the length of the body clinches it!

but good enough for a 'record' shot....
so Pauline duly recorded it that night...
and  so now we are in trouble...
now we are awaiting the....
"NO, you did not see this!" ...
emails from the moderator...
so, please note, Chédigny is not just about the roses!!
And Water Voles are happy in noisy, crowded environments...
and I'll be going back...
with the right equipment and an apple or two!

Posted by Tim




[##]And some film from one of the Bill Oddie TV series "Bill Oddie Goes Wild"...
series one - episode six...
got that nugget from Wikipedia whilst "glooking"* for the actual image...

I think it must exist on U-Bend somewhere.

I didn't find the shopping trolley image though....
but I found a wonderful site about Shropshire Water Voles [A. terrestris] called...
About a Brook  by Kate Long.

And Pauline found these interesting A. terrestris sites:
http://www.wildlifeinthecity.org/urban-wildlife/water-vole/
http://www.wildlifeinthecity.org/images/uploads/Animal_Facts_-_WaterVoleWINC!.pdf
and this map: Press the "back" arrow to go back one page...
otherwise it shows all sightings for all species...
by going back one page you get A. amphibius sightings for South East UK...
it is interesting to look at the map that loads...
the black and white hatched squares are where there are no observations of anything....
which points to a lack of recorders for those areas.

* "Glooking"... Googling for something

Oh! What a beautiful morning... Oh! What a beautiful day!

I've got a wonderful feeling everything's coming my way... TIMBERRRRR!

Pauline and I were enjoying a glass if ice-cold Hoegy by the cherry tree this evening when our attention was drawn, by the cats' behaviour... ears pricked and watching intently, to activity on the opposite side of the bief.
We saw two watervoles, one very dark and one paler chasing each other about... up and down the bank, in and out of the water, too and fro from the bridge to right opposite us. Then all went quiet...

As it got cooler we moved inside to refill glasses and listen to the Archers... Baron was still outside and jumped up onto the window sill  as if asking to come in... then he became interested in the bief again.... and on standing up I saw that the voles were at it again.

Collins Field Guide to Mammals of Britain and Europe cite the chasing about as breeding behaviour... will we be hearing the patter of tiny volefeet soon?

Incidentally, there was a very interesting programme on Auntie Beeb [Radio Four] yesterday about "Darren Tansley - Vole Warrior" It is available on Listen Again.

I will now start the day again...
Having made a New Year's Resolution to walk round the field as often as possible this Spring through to Autumn... I decided to start today... we'd heard a cuckoo, seen a swallow fly past the bedroom window... and I wanted to check out the fritillaries... it was a lovely stroll along the biefside, tripping over bramble and tussock but I saw our first cou-cou and while I was taking a picture of it, a cuckoo started up in the woods next to Bezuard... and like Niall & Antoinettes'... it seemed to be staying put!

Our first "cou-cou"... or Cowslip.

I then found a female Oil Beetle [Meloe proscarabaeus or M. violaceus... the first is more common]... as I have also recently photographed a male, I'll blog about these later with some more info.

Female Oil Beetle. Big girl isn't she... and despite the size of her abdomen, she couldn't half move!!

Strolling on the wier looked a site in the sun... and the older willows are looking well... though some are leaning a bit... I'll turn these into metre high pollards for easy harvesting of pole. A job for tomorrow or Friday... but it must be done before March is out!!

The wier [barrage] giving plenty of aeration to the water flowing over the older rocks.

I turned back along the riverside to look for the fritillaries... but no luck! I noticed that the bramble had been very hard hit by the freeze... this will make it easier to cut back this year... there won't be anything nesting in it at this time... it is too open.

Eventually I got to our non-Sloe bush [flowers much earlier than the Blackthorn...] Pauline is pretty certain it is a hybrid plum-blackthorn... it certainly shows hybrid vigor as can be seen from the two pictures below.

Lovely thick blossom.... will there be a frost?

It was alive with bees [mainly honeybees] and other insects all after the early source of nectar... even a dung fly looking for something a bit tastier.

The bees love this early nectar!

VOLE WARS

Ten minutes ago I was watching the world out the bedroom window, as one does, and saw a splash just in front of me on the opposite side of the bief.
An underwater surge let me know where something was moving and a Water Vole [Arvicola amphibius] Campagnol amphibie or terrestre [I still lump them*] bobbed to the surface in the middle of the clump of Flag Iris. It then paddled fast towards our side.
A minute or two later it swam back across to the iris. At that point another vole leapt from about halfway up the opposite bank and swam furiously at the other, which dived immediately. There was then an underwater chase with 'our' vole eventually seeing the intruder off under the bridge. I was able to watch the whole event quite easily as the water has now returned to a nice clear state.
'Our' vole returned to the bank where we've seen it most often and sat for a couple of minutes looking fixedly toward the bridge, before turning and vanishing up the bank and into the vegetation.
Apart from the entertainment value, it is nice to know now that we have a 'population'.
No pictures... no camera... no time.

I've just glanced toward the bief and seen a vole scamper up the bank... wait, there are voles charging about again... someone is getting mighty upset... splashing through the shallows at the waters edge.

Went to fetch camera now I'm downstairs... cue for all to go quiet again!

And I've got things to do.... can't wait around all morning.

As it is much warmer today... and sunny.... it could be a pair, full of the joys of January?

* We probably get both Arvicola sapidus and A. terrestris in this area and they are pretty impossible to tell apart unless you've a skull to check the dentition against!

Of "Ratty" and Rats and Ragondin

We are both currently in the grip of a bad cold... that has meant that we aren't doing much.... except watching out of the window and keeping ourselves warm.
I was observing the meadow and bief [millstream] this morning keeping an eye out for the pheasants, the water rail and the dabchicks. The latter haven't passed our way since the heavy rain of the end of January... the bief changed into weak, milky tea and we presume that the dabchicks have moved elsewhere to cleaner water, where they can see the fish they are after! The rail is still with us... water quality doesn't affect his probing and leaf-flipping feeding methods... just before the weekend I saw him get quite a large larva [possibly dragonfly or water-beetle], wash it in the murky water and bash it on a stone, then swallowing it whole... that was caught by the probing method!
And yesterday, in the current gloom, I managed to get some pictures of "the ladies" cleaning up under the feeder.... but, until they're worked up [and I need a clear head to do that], none good enough to post!
But, what has this to do with "Ratty", Rats and Ragondin.... I search for the water rail by looking for ripples coming out from the bank... they are small and vanish quickly and easily told from the moorhens' frantic splashings.
And I spotted some, just opposite the window, where I'd seen the rail appear before.... binos to that point and.... fur and short legs... and out from cover came "Ratty" our water-vole [arvicola amphibius] Campagnol amphibie and cruised stately across towards our bank of the bief [this was at 11AM].... I'd seen him yesterday, earlier, and had presumed that he'd been partying at at Toad Hall... all the books put them as nocturnal....

Water-vole. Taken by Nick Ford at Castle Acre, Norfolk at 8:35 am.

but as this picture [again one of my brother's and taken later than the above at ten to ten.... very useful is my bruvver!] shows.... they are out in the daytime too! So for "nocturnal"... please read "mainly".... I've seen them at midday, in high summer, full sun on a Norfolk stream. Actually the French guide (2) says they are both.... ie: out when you see them out!!

Water-vole. This is my shot of our vole.... not in the same class [picture that is!]

The three aquatic rodents we've got here are this little fellow [maximum head and body length 220mm], the Muskrat [Ondatra zibethicus] Rat Musqué [Head and body length from 240 to 370mm] and the Coypu [Myocastor coypus] Ragondin with a minimum head and body length of around 340mm]... so there is some overlap in size.... you cannot mistake the Coypu out of water... the long thick tail and the humped appearance.... along with the droopy, white moustache. But in water? Well, from observations here, they don't seem to like getting the moustache wet... they hold all of their head upward, out of the water, that makes their back sink more than the Muskrat with a gap 'twixt head and hump... also, contrary to illustrations in Collins(1) and the Delachaux et Niestlé (2) guides, they've got a distinctly buff-cream appearance around the ears.

Coypu. The cream round the ears can be seen here... but the white nose and moustache are very clear.

The Muskrat swims higher in the water and the long, wedge shaped head, almost vertical from the nose to the upper lip give it the appearance of a small tugboat chugging through the water. It leaves quite a narrow, clean wake too. There is a rich cream colour to the cheeks of the 'Musky'... again, in real life, much brighter than illustrated... and it is a BIG panel of colour running from the nose to the ears... and fully as deep as it is long. And, if you see it swimming away from you, the vertically flattened tail is a clear indicator!

Muskrat picture[it's on the system somewhere... please call back!]

Finally 'Ratty'... very obviously a vole.... same shape nearly, front and back, and the tail can only be seen in clear water. It seems to bob along on the water surface!

Water-vole. From directly above by our bridge.

Water-vole. And swimming away... beautifully hidden by the iris leaf!

But there are also European Beavers [Castor fiber] Castor d'Eurasie nearby... in the centre of Grand-Pressigny to be precise [they felled a riverside tree last year, and a couple of months ago did the same to a neighbouring tree!] As where this occured is right by where the Aigronne joins the Claise.... will they venture up the Aigronne.......?

Beaver evidence. This is last year's tree.... this years has fallen across this [right to left]

This years felled tree shows some bark removal and there is a possible entry/exit point on the bank nearby.

(1) Collins Field Guide Mammals Britain and Europe [1993]
(2) Les Guides du Naturaliste - Guide des mammifères d'Europe, d'Afrique du Nord et du Moyen-Orient [2008/2010]