I have always admired some of the other Abingdon Blogs.

Take Views of the Ock. When that blog started, the blogger was elated after weeks of searching to get an  indistinct blurred image of a water vole (I think they are also called water rats). Images got better and better until now the blogger seems able to find them at will, and has gone on to find other creatures like otters.

Today I saw my first water vole in the Margaret Brown Gardens, then almost immediately I saw five others. They scurried away, one down the riverside, the other five under the lavender.You can just see one cautiously peeping out to see if it is safe yet.

He / she then came out a bit further…

Then finally came into full view. My first clear image of a water vole (or is it a rat?). Just to add “Many people, including pest controllers, builders and developers, mistake the endangered water vole for the brown rat and accidentally poison them”