Lunt Meadows is a wetland nature reserve best known for its wide variety of bird species, but the site is also home to population of water voles, a much-loved British mammal better known as ‘Ratty’ in the children’s classic story The Wind in the Willows.

Water voles live in and along rivers, streams, lakes, reedbeds and other freshwater habitats. They grow to between 14-22cm big, are a chestnut-brown colour and have small ears, a blunt nose and a furry tail (not to be confused with brown rats, which have a pointed nose and a long, scaly tail). The sweet-looking water vole was once common across the UK but is sadly in rapid decline due to water pollution, habitat loss and predation by the invasive American mink.

The Wildlife Trusts and many other organisations are working hard to keep water voles in our rivers and streams and restore them to places where they've been lost. Thanks to conservation efforts by dedicated volunteers, the water vole population at Lunt Meadows has survived, but water voles are elusive. It can be difficult to see these shy mammals, find their burrows or see any signs of the grass they’ve nibbled amongst waterside vegetation, because they live alongside water.

The rafts, made of plywood and foam insultation sheets, were anchored into ponds, ditches and pools around Lunt Meadows using bamboo canes. Apples have been placed on top to entice the furry mammals to investigate. Water voles like to sit and eat in the same place, so piles of nibbled grass and stems may be left. Plants nibbled by water voles have a distinctive 45 degree, angled-cut at the ends. 'Latrines' of rounded, cigar-shaped droppings are also tell-tale signs of water vole activity.

Fiona Whitfield, Head of Land Management at Lancashire Wildlife Trust said, “A few years ago we would see water voles in one of the ditches next to Lunt Meadows, but they’ve been harder to spot as the nature reserve has developed – hopefully because they’ve got a greater choice of suitable habitats now. This would be positive result if it’s why they’re more elusive now, but it does make it much more difficult to keep track of them for monitoring purposes. We’re hoping that the rafts will help us to work out where the water voles’ favourite areas of the reserve are and give us a rough idea of how many are living on site. From this, we can then do more targeted monitoring, making sure our conservation tasks are appropriate for water voles and the other wildlife species on the reserve.”