The Mammals of Linford Lakes Nature Reserve (HESC)
by Janice Robertson
I had a brief glimpse of a weasel running across the
entrance to the car park last week. It looked like a flying sausage!
That started me wondering how many other mammals have been
seen on the reserve. The Flickr site seemed a good point to start. I tried the
Search option but hardly any came up because not many people remember to put a
proper title or tag identifying their photo. Of course the site hasn’t been in
operation for very long, having been set up in September 2013. And the FoHESC
blog also only started in March 2012. But I trawled through and found a few
more. These are notes on what I have found about mammals in the Linford Lakes
reserve, in approximate order of size. Perhaps other members would be able to
add to these sightings.
Tony Bedford and I saw a Water Shrew from the Woodland Hide on 28 February 2013. We could
just see the dark grey body moving about at the bottom of the reeds. It would
be looking for invertebrates such as dragonfly larvae but as they are semi-aquatic
they also eat beetles and worms along the banks.
Small mammals such as mice
and voles are much commoner than we realise because they tend to hide away in
their burrows or only venture out in the dark. That’s the problem with being so
tasty. They are first choice for barn owls, foxes and kestrels, which only
resort to worms and frogs if the rodents are too nippy to be caught. Badgers
will also take them if they find a nest. Mice are slightly larger than voles,
with longer tails, bigger eyes and sticking-up ears.
Many visitors will have seen Bank Voles darting in and out of the wood pile in front of the
Woodland Hide. They love nuts and seeds and don’t wait for nightfall before
nipping out for a scattered peanut. They were photographed by Neil Schofield in
February 2012 and Tony Bedford (whose moniker on Flickr is bankvole5) in early
2014. Then the wood pile was taken over by brown rats and the voles disappeared
(hopefully not down a rat’s throat). But just recently Peter Connor
photographed one there in February. So, have the rats gone? Another species is
a Short-tailed Field Vole which is as common but rarely seen in daylight.
Perhaps we should dissect some barn owl pellets to find out if they are on the
reserve.
In the Blog of October 2014 Tony Bedford has an amusing
account of offering to help eradicate rodents from the Hanson Centre offices.
He caught seven Wood Mice (also
known as Long-tailed Field Mouse) in
live traps baited with seed and apple and released them elsewhere in the
reserve where their prolific bodily evacuations won’t matter.
We know there are Moles
because we see the mounds of earth they kick out while digging their tunnel
systems underground. They eat worms and insects and whatever they can find
while occasionally emerging above ground, usually young ones dispersing to
other territories. They are regarded as a pest in agricultural areas, but they
reduce harmful larvae, and their tunnels help to drain soils.
Some of us took advantage of Gordon Redford’s moth and bat
evening last year. We didn’t see a lot in the dusk but it was obvious from the
beeping of our hand-held gadgets that bats were communicating. We could just
see outlines of the smallest and the largest British bats, Pipistrelles and Noctules,
as they fluttered overhead.
The log pile in front of the Woodland Hide was home to bank
voles until the Brown Rats moved in
and evicted them in the late autumn of 2014. Three or more were seen at any one
time, and they became brave and agile enough to climb the bird tables to feast
on the seed. I even photographed rats feeding communally with squirrels, great
tits and a marsh tit. Some people like them but they might carry diseases to
birds and other mammals.
Grey Squirrel
Apart from rats, are Grey
Squirrels the most controversial animal on the reserve? Comments heard in
the Woodland Hide vary from “They are so cute” to “They’re eating all the
peanuts so the birds don’t get a look in”. I think the most I’ve counted was
six at once, swinging in from all directions as soon as new seed is put out.
They were introduced to this country in the 1850s, and are blamed for damage to
trees by bark stripping and for outcompeting or spreading a pox virus to red
squirrels. They also are fond of eggs and young birds from nests that they can
easily reach. The Government announced
plans to extend culling by giving grants to landowners who had identified the
animals as an issue and who wanted to receive funding for woodland and other
related projects. Perhaps their days are numbered, but I would be sorry to see
them all disappear.
Rabbits are
rarely seen, although Peter Garner photographed one in June 2014. I often see
them grazing in farmland during the day but usually they prefer dusk and dawn,
when I don’t tend to visit the reserve. Probably only the rough fields and
woodland edges of the reserve are suitable. They would be prey for foxes,
stoats, tawny owls, and buzzards, and survive by having acute hearing and
eyesight and bolting down their burrows at the first hint of danger.
Weasels and Stoats have been recorded on the
reserve (see Tony Bedford’s photos of December 2012 and July 2014 and Neil
Schofield’s of September 2014). But how to tell them apart? There is a size
difference (stoats are bigger) and weasels have short tails without a dark tip.
They are both fearless and will tackle prey larger than themselves, such as
rabbits and rats, as well as mice and voles, and if they get a chance, birds
and eggs.
In April 2014 Jenny Brown photographed an American Mink peeking out of a drainage
pipe. It looked cute, a bit like a small otter, but as semi-aquatic animals
they are opportunistic killers of fish, ducklings, small mammals and
ground-nesting birds, and are small enough to predate hole dwellers such as water
voles and kingfishers. They tend to kill more than they need to eat. They were
brought into the country for fur farms, from where they escaped in the late 1950s.
They have no natural predators in the UK, although it is thought that the
presence of otters reduces their numbers for some reason, perhaps competition
for nesting sites. The local Wildlife Trusts try to control them where water
voles are threatened by improving habitat and trapping them.
Otter
Otters were first
sighted in the River Ouzel in 2007 and at Willen Lake in March 2013. On a dull
rainy day in February 2014 I was fortunate to video three otters swimming
across the main lake towards the bank behind the Centre offices. Then early
this year Neil Schofield was lucky enough to photograph four swimming and Tony
Bedford amazingly came across one walking along a footpath and had the presence
of mind to grab a wonderful photo. Anglers are not keen on them (and the
reserve is next to several fishing lakes). Otters will often take a bite out of
a large fish and leave the rest. Neil spotted the otters because they were
being followed by crows and gulls, probably hoping for some easy pickings. They
are a sign of clear waters and abundant fish stocks. The local Wildlife Trusts
try to encourage them by improving habitats and sites for holts.
As nocturnal animals, Badgers
are rarely seen. But their footprints are visible in the wet mud and their tidy
latrine holes can sometimes be spotted. A sett near a path seems to be in
current use. There must be plenty of earthworms around the wet areas. They
would also find berries and beetles and wasps’ nests in the ground, and even
peanuts if the birds and squirrels leave them around. Unfortunately they often
fall prey themselves, to cars on the roads. One was dead on the main road
outside the reserve entrance only last month. If they are breeding, young cubs
may be above ground by about April.
Many of us regularly see Red Foxes on the reserve, trotting along well-worn paths, or at
least smell the pungent aroma they leave behind. I videoed one almost bumping
into a muntjac before it was threatened and had to move away. Apparently their
eyesight is not as good as their sense of smell or hearing, but they are better
at seeing at night-time when they find most of their prey. Neil Schofield has
photos of one impudently crossing the bund, where they could do a lot of damage
to ground-nesting birds and their eggs. They will eat anything: fruit, grasses,
beetles, small mammals, squirrels, fish, frogs.
Many of us have seen one or a pair of Muntjacs, calmly grazing among the trees, until they spot us, at
which point they head off out of sight among the bushes with their tails
sticking up. Or you might hear one barking like an alarmed dog. They escaped
from Woburn Abbey’s parkland in the early 1900s and are now sometimes regarded
as a pest, although not as damaging to woodlands as larger deer. They love
juicy woodland plants and tree saplings, and any vegetable matter. But it is
unlikely that they will inhabit the reserve in such numbers as to do real
damage.
It would be interesting to hear of other sightings on the
reserve. Has anyone seen hedgehogs, or water voles? One day we may even find
evidence of polecats, which have recently bred at College Lake near Tring, and
may be expanding their range.
All photographs taken by and copyright Tony Bedford
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