Water voles making a comeback

Ratty was always a brave fighter when cornered, as the stoats, the weasels, and readers of the Wind in the Willows will remember. And now he is fighting back.

Kenneth Grahame\'s heroic messer-about in boats was – as the illustrations clearly show – not a rat at all but a water vole, a creature which has become one of Britain\'s rarest mammals. The population is estimated to have crashed by 90% in 20 years, hit by pollution, accidental poisoning by pest controllers, and attacks by mink. Recently a £5,000 fine was introduced for injuring one or disturbing its habitat.

But this year\'s wildlife survey for British Waterways in which members of the public report the creatures they see along the 2,200-mile network of canals and waterways, has more cheering news. Although water voles remain extremely rare, there were 89 sightings, twice as many as in 2008, with most spotted along the Kennet and Avon canal in southern England.

Among the 42,5000 sightings, 127 bird species were spotted, 27 butterfly species, and three times as many frogs as in 2009 – despite reports this year of falling numbers of frogspawn and tadpoles.

The commonest were mallard ducks, followed closely by Canada geese and swans. Among the more startling sightings were a porpoise in the river Ouse near Selby, and a large alligator snapping turtle, a native of north America which may well have become too ferocious for some pet owner, seen in the Earlswood reservoir in Solihull.

Grey squirrels, with 390 reports, made it into the top 10, the handful of red squirrel sightings did not. Cormorants, herons, robins, moorhens, house sparrows and coots were also among the commonest sightings, along with sticklebacks, roach and perch, and insects including damsel and dragon flies.

Although they didn\'t make the top 20 species, there were dozens of reports of kingfishers, an indicator of good water quality.

Top 10 wildlife sightings on Britain\'s canals, 2009

Mallard 7,037 reports

Canada goose 2,550

Swan 2482

Moorhen 2,019

Starling 1,693

Bumblebee 1,664

Rabbit 1,403

House sparrow 1,329

Coot 1,312

Stickleback 780