{"id":194882,"date":"2025-12-20T13:36:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T13:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/194882\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T13:36:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T13:36:09","slug":"are-there-more-molehills-than-usual-this-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/194882\/","title":{"rendered":"Are there more molehills than usual this winter?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steven McKenzieHighlands and Islands reporter<\/p>\n

\"GettyGetty Images<\/p>\n

Molehills – the mounds of earth moles dig up and leave on the surface as they tunnel underground – are the closest most people are likely to get to one of Britain’s most elusive animals.<\/p>\n

Out of Doors co-host Rachel Stewart said her senior producer was intrigued by why she had seen more hills than usual at this time of year.<\/p>\n

The show’s guest – Joanna Peaker, of Montrose Basin Visitor Centre – said she hadn’t noticed anything exceptional herself, but suggested the explanation could be weather-related.<\/p>\n

“I suppose it’s going to vary where you are in the country,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It could be an effect of a milder winter because when it is frosty the moles will go deeper down to find invertebrates.<\/p>\n

“If it’s not very frosty then they will stay closer to surface level.” <\/p>\n

Is it because of climate change?<\/p>\n

Matt Larsen-Daw, chief executive of The Mammal Society, says there can be a few reasons why moles might go through a phase of tunnelling later in the year.<\/p>\n

But he said this happening even for a couple of consecutive years did not mean climate change was to blame.<\/p>\n

“A mild year may mean that some females have a second litter in the autumn, especially if the first litter was early due to an early spring,” he said.<\/p>\n

“This could mean that some young moles are establishing their tunnel system in a new territory in the winter.”<\/p>\n

“Again, this could happen as a one-off, it is a rare occurrence – moles usually have one litter a year.<\/p>\n

“But if climate change leads to the conditions that allow this being more frequent then it could become more common.”<\/p>\n

‘Mole fortresses’<\/p>\n

\"Several<\/p>\n

Molehills in Inverness this week when it has been raining heavily<\/p>\n

Mr Larsen-Daw said the size of the molehills offered another clue to what was going on.<\/p>\n

“If you have seen any particularly large ones they could be ‘mole fortresses’,” he said.<\/p>\n

“When the water table rises so high after heavy rain that the ground is saturated, moles dig out soil to create a large above-ground mound in which they can have a tunnel system in which to shelter, breed and store food above the waterlogged ground.”<\/p>\n

He said smaller, normal size molehills could be being dug for the same reason.<\/p>\n

“Given the amount of recent rainfall this is a possible explanation this year,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Larsen-Daw added: “Moles are fascinating and very ingenious in so many ways – they are not given as much attention as they deserve simply because people so rarely see them due to their fossorial lifestyles.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steven McKenzieHighlands and Islands reporter Getty Images Molehills – the mounds of earth moles dig up and leave…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[85,46,141,386],"class_list":{"0":"post-194882","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}