Water vole volunteers 'get very excited by flattened poo'

"We get very excited by flattened poo," is a sentence I was not expecting.

Neither was I expecting to be standing thigh-high in a chalk stream surrounded by people armed with poles wearing waders and lifejackets.

"Found another," cries a volunteer with their head in a river bank.

Reserves officer for Central Rivers and Downs with Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, Andy Reeves, grins and updates his chart.

"That means we've got evidence of breeding water vole which is brilliant," he continues on the subject of the flattened poo.

"Water voles have got scent glands on their feet and they will stamp down on the poo and they'll flatten it around and that is them scent marking their territory."

I've joined volunteers on a survey of water vole along a section of the River Meon through St Clair's Meadow in Hampshire.

Extensive monitoring of the chalk stream has taken place for more than a decade, since the first reintroduction of water voles to the river in 2013.

It is not just squashed droppings the volunteers are looking for.

Another giveaway water voles are present are small food stashes and nibbled plants.

"They are the most extraordinary creatures because they will chop off bits of stem at 45 degrees," explains volunteer Stephen Short holding up a stalk.

"And it is so accurate in a lot of cases if you can see that. And so that's one of the things that we're looking for."

The nibbled plants are stashed in small piles amongst the reeds by the water voles to eat later.

As the volunteers make their way down stream, gently parting the riverside vegetation looking for signs of water voles, frequent finds are shouted back to Reeves.

The constant updates of today's chart perhaps masks the spectacular decline of what was once a constant along our waterways.

It is estimated the spread of non native American mink saw 90% of water voles wiped out since the 1970s.

Together with the loss of habitat it now has the unenviable title of the fastest declining mammal in Britain.

But on the River Meon the future of the water vole is looking a little brighter.

More than 2,800 water voles have been released as part of the Meon Valley Partnership since 2013.

The joint project between the South Downs National Park Authority, conservation groups and landowners appears to have halted and reversed the dramatic decline.

Regular surveys have shown they are breeding and thriving with no sign of American mink along the waterway.

It is good news too for the wider habitat as the presence of water voles brings benefits for biodiversity as they create micro ecosystems as they interact with the river.

Constant nibbling of more than 200 species of plants means riverbanks thrive and their water front burrows improve soils.

Further conservation work and monitoring is planned to ensure water voles continue to thrive on the River Meon.

That is the good news.

The bad news is my waders have just sprung a leak.