Almost Wind in The Willows 31st March 2023

As he sat on the grass and looked across the river, a dark hole in the bank opposite, just above the water's edge, caught his eye, and dreamily he fell to considering what a nice snug dwelling place it would make for an animal with few wants and fond of a bijou riverside residence, above flood level and remote from noise and dust. As he gazed, something bright and small seemed to twinkle down in the heart of it, vanished, then twinkled once more like a tiny star. But it could hardly be a star in such an unlikely siuation and it was too glittering and small for a glow worm.

Then, as he looked, it winked at him, and so declared itself to be an eye; and a small face began gradually to grow up around it, like a frame round a picture

A brown face, with whiskers

A grave round face, with the same twinkle in its eye that had first attracted his notice.

Small neat ears and thick silky hair.

It was the Water Rat!'

With grateful acknowledgment to Kenneth Graham's immortal book The Wind in the Willows

As most people are aware Kenneth Graham's Water Rat was in fact a Water Vole, once a common inhabitant of our streams, ponds and rivers but then decimated by North American Mink, originally released by animal rights protestors from mink fur farms in England and subsequently finding our rivers much to their liking, so much so they increased rapidly  on virtually every waterway in Britain. The Water Vole is Britain's fastest declining mammal and much effort is being made to protect them and their habitat, so far with only partial success.