Even by boosting the contrast, I can’t really pick out any definite tracks at the entrance to my animal tracking tunnel, which has now been sitting amongst the long grass by the hedge at the end of the garden for two days. The damp paper along the edges might have been nibbled by slugs.
As I moved in to take a close-up photograph, a vole ran out from the tunnel. It happened so quickly that I wondered if it really had been in there or whether it had been hidden in the grass at my feet but when I slid out the bait tray I could see that half the sunflower hearts had disappeared.
One of the sunflower hearts had been nibbled at one end to expose the seed inside.
In the milk bottle top that serves as a bowl for the bait something has been nibbling away at what I think might be fragments of peanuts in the peanut butter. Traces of slime suggest that slugs or snails have been visiting the tunnel.
I’ve topped up the bait with sunflower hearts, so my tracking tunnel has now become a vole feeding station.
A HAPPY vole feeding station.