ON THE WILD SIDE A mole in one
ANYONE wanting to watch wildlife needs one tool to start out – a decent field guide! Never leave home without one, and if you don’t like lugging it around you can get a digital version on your phone. THE ground has softened up a little again after the big heatwave and we have an entire world of animals burrowing under our feet, and not just the creepy crawly ones.
Unless you have a cat that’s very skilled at hunting, you have probably never seen a live mole. But there are more than 30million of them in the UK, so they certainly aren’t rare. How can there be so many and we just never see them? Because they would happily spend their entire life in their burrows if they could. They only need to come up to gather nesting materials…and to breathe. Moles are incredibly well adapted for life underground, with powerful claws, tiny eyes that don’t trap dirt, and an incredible sense of smell and touch. They are happy to dig their way through your garden, eating any juicy bug that crosses their path.
Their favourite food is earthworms and they have strong jagged teeth that can chew through any slime. Their bite can actually paralyse worms, and moles use this to their advantage, storing the poor creatures away for later. Some have been known to keep hundreds, or even thousands of the wrigglers. Before they eat one they squeeze out all the mud from inside them – moles do not like eating worm poo.
If you have them under your lawn you will know how hard they are to get rid of, but even though your lovely grass may be ruined, moles are beneficial to your garden. They aerate the plants (as long as they don’t accidentally dig them up) and eat pests. Maybe you don’t have the big mounds left by moles, but that doesn’t mean you are safe.You may have lots of tiny little hills instead, and they are likely to be made by Andrena – the mining bee, inset. Nearly three quarters of all bee species burrow and these harmless garden visitors raise their babies at this time of year, meaning your lawn may be a nursery. Only the females burrow, so if you see a tiny bee flying low above the burrows it’ll be the male. He has no sting, so don’t worry. They will leave as soon as their kids are all grown and you can have your lawn back.