Watervole - July 2012

Hi everyone,

how are you?

You know when you are walking to the Kingfisher hide... you turn left off the main path and walk onto the little D shaped section of path that takes you to the Kingfisher hide, and onto a bridge?

Well if you stand on that bridge and look down the stream towards the Ashby hide you'll notice on the right side of the stream there are three or so trees about waist height...
These trees have been coppiced/ pollarded (a tree management technique that allows the tree to grow many small shoots rather than one thick trunk)... but if you notice the many small shoots have actually been cut at about 4 inches

This wasn't us! We have a watervole that is coppicing our trees for us!

I'm sure he/she thinks it's a beaver!

It's climbing the trees up to this new growth and nibbling the shoot off, then pulling the shoot towards itself eating all the leaves along the length!

AMAZING!

Have a look at these fabulous pictures by Keith Bedford!

This is one of the trees, can you see the shoot growing/ where the watervole has chewed them?