Water Vole help from the SWT

Very exciting news on our water vole front!

As many are already aware, we have been releasing water voles out on to our nature reserve for the last couple of years. The patient among you have been rewarded with a rare glimpse of a wild water vole around the board walk, they seem to be doing well and now the time has come to really push this conservation scheme and try and establish breeding voles around the reserve.

We are working closely with the Surrey Wildlife Trust to monitor the habitat prior and post release of future voles, and will be improving our mink monitoring with the SWT help. With their help we hope to not only establish wild breeding water voles on our nature reserve, but to also eventually help them to navigate up the stream to join the Eden Brook and therefore re-introduce voles back on to this river for the first time!

This will be a joint venture between ourselves and the Surrey Wildlife Trust, and co-operation for neighboring land owners through which the tributary we are on passes.

On our initial surveys yesterday, although not seeing a vole itself, we saw many signs and sightings including feeding remains and droppings that were definitely from a water vole.

This is all very exciting for us here, and I will keep you up to date with what is going on over the months and into next year.