On the 14th May I attended the first meeting of a new, and so far un-named, group of volunteers who will hopefully become a major part of the River Anton Enhancement Project. The group will initially be guided by Jim and Sarah, but importantly will be completely separate from either TVBC and the Wildlife Trust. The group will have its own funding, mainly from grants, and will comprise a small working committee and a host of volunteers, who in time, with some expert input, will carry out any work required and decide on the best way to maintain and improve the Anton. This is a huge and exciting project and will require lots of enthusiastic and willing volunteers for the group to succeed and see the Anton cared for by members of the public in Andover.

Of course the water voles on the Anton have kept me busy with more monitoring and more surveys. The population at Rooksbury continues to grow with many more sightings over the last few weeks. I’ve seen several water voles in the ponds, which is great news. I think they may have been there all winter and have kept a low profile. That colony is growing and there are now several new burrow entrances. The only place that doesn’t seem to have any water voles is the stream behind the ponds. Having said that there is so much vegetation on that stretch that there could be dozens of water voles but you would never see one. A good indication that a water vole is in dense vegetation is that you can hear them eating and biting through the grasses and reeds. Quite often there appears to be a huge battle going on, with a small clump of reeds shaking madly before one reed is pulled down and the munching starts.
The water voles seem to be fairing well along the whole of the Anton. Sarah spotted one near Asda’s and I’ve also seen droppings and a burrow entrance at Anton Lakes.
Sarah held a water vole survey training day at the start of May, and during the practical part of the day at Rooksbury found some otter spraint at one of the entrances of the holt we built earlier in the year. It’s fantastic news and another spot I will regularly check for more spraint.

Highlight of the month was seeing my first baby water vole at Rooksbury. Just a few inches long he or she was feeding with an adult by one of the bridges a great moment.
The Great Crested Grebe’s that had two tiny chicks riding on the back of one of the adults, now have two large chicks following the adults. A Mallard family I saw last week with eight chicks is down to only three chicks this week, but they are getting quite large as well. There are several moorhens with chicks in tow as well at the moment. I’ve also seen my first Damselflies of the year mainly blue and black striped Southern Damselflies.

James Cooke

What better way to spend a bank holiday weekend than at watching some wildlife. I had two visits to Rooksbury over the weekend a saw some fantastic sights. Rooksbury itself is beautiful at this time of year as I hope this photo of Barlows lake shows taken just before 8 am on Saturday. The trees look fabulous with all the fresh leaves and buds.

There are a number of baby birds around including at least two Great Crested Grebe chicks riding piggy back on one of the parents while the other parent dives for food before resurfacing and passing the food to the chicks. Taking a break from the water vole surveys gave me a chance to watch patently for any movement. On Saturday morning I saw three and then on Monday I saw six. At last, a sighting of a water vole in the ponds. I’ve noticed a number of fresh burrow entrances over the last few weeks but no other signs of ratty. Then on Monday a large bunch of grasses on the bank started to rustle and shake uncontrollably a sure sign that a water vole was about. First his blunt nose and then the rest of his body slid out from the grass’s down the bank and into the water, his mouth pulling three or four long lengths of grass along. He dived down with lunch or bedding only to reappear and climb back to the long grasses and take another three or four blades back under the water moments later. He did this four more times. I expected him to carry on now obviously taking bedding to the burrow rather than lunch, but instead of taking more grass he started to swim across the pond. Startled he dived down and in the shallow clear water I could see him not swimming but running along the bottom of the pond, leaving a trail in the mud, his fur glistening silver as trapped air bubbles in his fur caught the sunlight like jewels. He disappeared into a burrow on the other bank, but it was an amazing site to see him so clearly under water. I spotted the same or may be another water vole at the opposite end of that pond later in the morning, as well as three between the two bridges by the carpark and droppings on the Anton above the mill. Another water vole had me laugh out loud as it felled three tall and thick reeds. Each reed must have been well over a foot high but this little fellow made light work of cutting them and moving them to the waters edge, before having a break to eat some more manageable smaller vegetation.
I hadn’t realised but there may have been up to 5 kingfishers at Rooksbury over the winter but sadly they all seem to have moved to pastures new for the summer, I certainly haven’t seen one for over a month now."

James Cooke