About thirty years ago, I was fortunate enough to stumble upon a thriving colony of water voles around the margins of a remote willow-encircled pond in central England. This beguiling little mammal, immortalized as Ratty in Kenneth Grahame's 'The Wind in the Willows' is not a rat at all but a true vole.

Now sadly, the water vole is on the endangered list as a result of the usual habitat destruction, pollution and the crass stupidity and ignorance of animal rights campaigners releasing farmed mink into the wild.