I was listening to a Water rail squealing from the reeds growing alongside a local brook, getting tantalising but very fleeting glimpses of it moving stealthily along the water’s edge, when I realised I could hear another sound, a slight but regular rustling. I scanned the edge of the brook again and there, sitting in plain sight, was the well-camouflaged brown blob of a Water vole, munching contentedly on a green reed. It made for a much more obliging photographic subject, and a very cute one at that.