wild SEPTEMBER

7 nature encounters for the month ahead

- BEN HOARE

IMMORTALISED AS RATTY IN The Wind in the Willows, water voles are much loved mammals in Britain, though sadly at a low ebb due to decades of habitat loss, river pollution and predation by introduced American mink.

But the People's Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) reports tentative signs of local comebacks. The release of captive-bred water voles into the wild each August and September may prove to be a key part of any recovery.

Welcome housemates

HOUSE MARTINS SEEM TO CALL non-stop as they swoop to and fro, trawling the sky for flies and other kinds of ‘aerial plankton’. Their buzzy, chattering notes are a quintessential sound of summer in suburbia and villages across the UK.

These handsome black-and-white birds, which appear so cheerful to us, are still in evidence in September. Indeed, they may actually still be breeding, since a few pairs will have three broods before they finally depart south to spend the winter in sub-Saharan Africa. With young as well as adults on the wing, this only adds to the general hubbub overhead.