Water Vole - One of this years young ??

Hi to all,

Here's another Water Vole from yesterdays outing, this little chap was much smaller than the vole in my last post and is probably one of this years young, he was just taking a break from collecting grass and Plantain leaves which he was storing away in his burrow. Very difficult to capture a clean shot, there was always an OOF piece of grass in the way, thanks for looking.

Converted in DPP / Processed in CS2 ( Full frame - Cropped for comp )

Usual bits and pieces
1/400th @ F5.6 iso400 RAW

All comments welcome

Regards

Andy...

that's a nice shot Andy, well composed and a nice pose. It does look like it could be a young one.

Matt

Very nice Vole shot.
The OOF blur on the rump could be gradually darkened with a brush tool which may make it less noticeable.
No big shakes though.
JohnR

great job! hard to tell if a young un, need to see if has a white stripe on his head!!!! usually a tell tale sign!

Love the shot

Nice shot, they grow up pretty quick, like most rodents so if its small it's probably less that 3-6 months old.

I really like this. The important bits are mostly clear of anything oof. Good job !

Dave

Hi Andy,

Lovely vole shot!

Lovely detail of such a small creature.

Lovely little fellow. The Oof stuff detracts a bit for me, but I know how hard these can be to get isolated. mine always seem to be on the far bank of the canal which makes it hard to get them away from the clutter. This one being so small doesn't help either I guess.
Still a nice one to have though.
Eric

That's not a bad shot at all, looks young but then as the average life span of a vole is around 6-8 months and pregnancy lasts only 21 days, so most of them look young at this time of year, I've never seen a white stripe on a baby voles head though and they are mammals not rodents.

Most won't survive their first winter, good news is if there are otters around they like to eat mink (the voles no1 preditor) but leave the voles alone, our local nature reserve has just had its second vole release.

Really nice shot! The oof grass isn't ideal, but at least the head is clear. I'd be very happy if I'd taken it! Just to add to the last post...voles are actually rodents - and mammals as well since all rodents are mammals!

Thanks for the comments guys, pleased you like it

Andy...

Great vole Andy, don't mind the blurry grass too much - its the reality of where they live!