By Kerry Williams
Communications Officer - Conservation
If you’re on a reedbed ramble at Rye Harbour and hear a ‘plop’, you might have just missed one. Although active during the day, Water Voles are extremely shy and quiet. Given both their rarity and secrecy, it’s a wonder how anyone even knows they are there. So, here are a few tips.
Voles vs. Rats
As a semi-aquatic rodent, Water Voles (pictured above) are often referred to as ‘water rats’. From the corner of your eye, you could mistake one for a Brown Rat (pictured below), but they are quite different. Water Voles have a blunt nose, a furry tail and small ears. Rats have pointier faces, long hairless tails, and rounded ears. And although I have nothing against Rats, Water Voles are super cute.
Food caches
Water Voles will sit in one place to eat, so a cache of riverside nibbled grass stems can be a give-away. These may often lie outside a discrete riverbank burrow. Continuing the ratty-confusion-theme, Brown Rats exhibit similar nibbly behaviours. However, Water Voles munch grasses at a neat 45-degree angle, whereas Rat teeth marks are a bit more erratic.
Latrines
It’s tricky to mention identifiers without talking about poo. Collections of small, rounded, cigar or tic-tac shaped droppings, known as latrines, are what to look out for along the water's edge. These tidy deposits are a calling card for territory marking. Although the droppings are scentless, the Voles will rub their hind legs on their scent glands and stamp on the droppings to leave a scent, resulting in layers of trampled latrines. A glamorous task. Rat droppings are flat at one end and pointy at the other and tend to be left at intervals rather than in piles.
But it’s not all idyllic grass-nibbling and poop-stamping; our Water Voles are at risk. Threatened by pollution, climate change, habitat loss due to intensification of agriculture and development, and predation by invasive non-native American Mink, our Water Voles are up against it. Having once been found in nearly every waterway in England, this native species has declined by a staggering 90% since the 1970s. A protected species in the UK, Water Voles are now listed as Endangered on the Great Britain and England Red List for mammals.
It can all sound a bit bleak, but there is good news ahead. The Waterlife Recovery Project is making great steps to protect this species by monitoring and managing the UK population of American Mink. Our Rye Harbour Nature Reserve is working on similar efforts, primarily to protect ground nesting birds, but also safeguarding the resident Water Voles.
And there are things you can do too. By keeping your pets out of waterways, you can prevent pollution of our precious rivers by pet flea treatments. By taking your litter home, you can prevent the over-filling of bins and spilling of rubbish into vital Water Vole habitat. With careful choices regarding how you buy your food, you can support local wildlife friendly farming practices.
To help monitor the Water Vole population, wherever you are based, you can record sightings on iRecord, which can be accessed via the website or by downloading the app. These records are verified and shared with the Sussex Biodiversity Records Centre, who hold species data for the county.
By taking action to support healthy rivers, balanced ecosystems, and robust monitoring we can contribute to bringing our Water Voles back from the brink of extinction to their rightful place in our flourishing waterways.
This post is also available on Sussex Wildlife Trust website
