Wild Hares and Hummingbirds by Stephen Moss Page A

three traps we check, two of the doors are shut, a good sign; although rain, slugs and bad luck can all cause the door to close without a mammal inside.
    Alison tips up the trap and empties what appears to be an entire haystack into a large polythene bag. There are animal droppings, then chopped pieces of grass … then, finally, a small, round, furry creature falls unceremoniously into the bottom of the bag. It is definitely a vole, but which one? Bank voles are a possibility – Alison often catches these in her own garden – but they have a more russet tinge to their plumage than this little beastie. Then we see the tail; or, at least, what there is of it: a short, stumpy protuberance, only an inch or so long. This, together with the greyish-brown fur, confirms that this is indeed a field vole.
    After all the children have taken a good look at the animal, Charlie is chosen to release it. As soon as the vole lands on the ground it disappears into the long grass, melting away, before surfacing again a foot or so further along; then with two or three short, jerky hops, it is gone.
    We also strike lucky with the next trap: another field vole, swiftly followed by a third. And at the bottom of the garden, two more rodents: smaller and more slender, white below and yellowish-brown above, with long, oval-shaped ears. These are wood mice: the quintessential wild mouse of our countryside.
    When released they dash away even more quickly than the voles, this time on the surface of the grass rather than burrowing underneath. The second mouse entertains the children by momentarily dancing across their wellington boots; a second later it has also disappeared.
    Over a cooked breakfast, the children chatter excitedly about their experience. They, and we, will never look at our back garden in quite the same way again.

    T WO ROADS – ONE ancient, one modern – skirt the north-western boundary of the parish. The more obvious of the two is the M5, whose six carriageways weave across the flat landscape on its journey south from Birmingham to Exeter. This is the main holiday route to and from the south-west, bringing hordes of holidaymakers from the Midlands to the nearby beach resorts of Burnham-on-Sea and Weston-super-Mare. The latter seaside town is known affectionately as ‘Weston-super-mud’, due to the sea’s extraordinary tidal range here.
    Shadowing the motorway is a much older road: the A38, which has been described as ‘the longest country lane in England’. It may be smaller and quieter than its six-lane counterpart, but it is almost twice as long, running for more than three hundred miles from Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, to Mansfield in the heart of the East Midlands.
    If you are stuck in bank holiday traffic on either road, it is always worth looking out for wildlife. And today, in the shadow of Brent Knoll, a slender, long-winged creature hangs motionless, some 30 feet above the hard shoulder. It is a kestrel: the classic bird of our motorway system; though now, sadly, a far less frequent sight than it used to be.
    When I was growing up, the kestrel was by far our most common bird of prey, but it is now down to third place, behind the buzzard and the sparrowhawk. These are enjoying a population boom, while the kestrel is currently the only British raptor in decline. This may be to do with a shortage of its favourite food, the field vole; another casualty of modern farming.
    I watch as the bird performs its hunting ritual, hovering motionless – apart from its winnowing wings – for a few seconds, before dipping one wing in order to change position and begin hovering again. Slow-motion film has revealed that although the hovering kestrel makes constant tiny adjustments to the position of its body and wings, its eyes stay locked in place, focused intently on the ground below. The bird is searching for the tiny movements which will reveal the presence of a vole.
    The kestrel also has a secret weapon. As field voles swarm