This tiny pond has mesmerised me the past few mornings, as I keep an eye on the water’s murky surface, looking for telltale ripples. The pool’s banks are perforated and pockmarked, the soil dug and disturbed. I’ve been inspecting those holes, wandering down the trickling outlet, examining packed dirt compressed by little bodies, peering into grassy borders to find tunnels leading into a miniature jungle.
A colony of water voles (Arvicola amphibius) has taken root in this pool tucked into a protected corner of Assynt’s lowlands, and a large colony by all the signs. A few weeks ago, I watched two of them harvesting rushes – a favourite food – in the pool while another pair grazed by the outlet. All the while, a moss patch above the waterline heaved and twitched, suggesting a burrow of energetic rodents somewhere out of sight.
Scotland’s water voles are sleek, silky, and near black, a genetic strain that arrived from Iberia after the ice age, of different lineage to the brown water voles of England and Wales, which came from south-eastern Europe.
Water voles have suffered in Britain in past years, population numbers plummeting due to habitat loss and predation by mink. But in this colony they seem to be thriving. Or so I thought. Waiting, watching, nothing. Perhaps the young voles have dispersed, the adults off to have the next litter: with a breeding season from April through August, multiple litters are possible, though not always achieved.
The pool is still. A red deer grazes nearby. Young buzzards screech high above. Then, yes, a ripple across the water surface, no more than a water strider might make. A nose appears, a sleek black body, a water vole emerging from the pond, as dark as the bank mud. Small, subtle, alive and wonderful. Not as majestic as a red deer or screeching hawk, not as awe-inspiring as the wolves and bears that walk the wilds of other countries. But this small creature catches my breath. One small rodent sighted. An excellent start to the day.
