The Rise of Ratty, The Decline of Mrs Tiggywinkle

As most kids from 3 to 103 will know, Ratty was one of the prominent characters in Kenneth Grahame’s wonderful book “The Wind in the Willows”, but early illustrations show that Ratty wasn’t a rat in the true sense of the word but was more probably a water vole.  These attractive little creatures, around 20 years ago, could be found in great abundance on almost all of Britain’s waterways but numbers have declined by 90% since the 1980s.  But, just like Ratty, he’s putting up a damned good fight and water vole numbers are slowly on the increase.

However, Ratty’s decline wasn’t due to standing his ground against the evil weasels and stoats as in the story but due mainly to us humans who have been polluting the waterways and flinging pesticides hither and thither across the land.

In order to combat the decline of this cheeky little chappy recent legislation was put in place by way of a fine of £5,000 to anyone who injured one or disturbed his habitat.  Surprisingly, this legislation seems to have had some effect and this year’s British Waterways wildlife survey has revealed that, although these voles are still extremely rare, there were 89 sightings – twice as many as last year.  Most of the sightings seem to have been along the banks of the Kennet and Avon canal in southern England.

The survey was conducted by members of the public who reported on the various creatures they saw along the 2,000 mile network of canals and waterways and not only did it reveal a considerable increase in the number of water voles but, among a total of 42,500 sightings of wildlife, 127  birds and 27 butterfly species were spotted and three times as many frogs were spotted this year compared to last.

The top three sightings will come as no surprise to UK residents – there were over 7,000 sightings of mallard ducks, around 2,500 sightings of Canada geese, and almost 2,500 sightings of swans.

Other top sightings were moorhens, starlings, bumblebees, rabbits, house sparrows, coots and sticklebacks.

It was also good to see kingfishers fairly high on the list, although unfortunately not in the Top 20.  These fussy little birds like nice clean water – not your “bog standard” muck – so it bodes well for next year’s wildlife if the waters are contaminate free.