MOLE HABITS

Can moles do anything else but dig? Yes, they spend half of the day sleeping; however, they are active throughout the day and you can never be sure when the next mound will pop up on your lawn.

Moles appear to be loners and they are naturally intolerant towards each other. Captured moles will usually fight violently (rolling, biting and punching with those big forefeet) if placed together in confined quarters.

Although their tunnel system may overlap, the results of radio-tracking experiments suggest that a mole's activities are confined to a personalized home range called an encampment.

Moles depend upon their encampment for food - it's like a personal grocery store - so it is regularly patrolled by the owner who marks its active territory by laying a trail of liquid scent to discourage others from trespassing. However, abandoned tunnels are usually adopted by neighbouring moles.

The anti-social mole becomes amorous for a brief period. The males begin to burrow ceaselessly in search of a welcoming female. The breeding season begins in early winter and usually ends sometime in February. Moles are capable of breeding during their first year of life and most females will give birth to between 2 and 4 young by May.

Nestlings mature rapidly on their mothers rich milk and in one month they weigh 15 times their birth weight.

Around this time the young are given the 'heave-ho' from the nest and have to embark upon the mission of securing their own encampment and thus, the main business of mole life which is tunneling, eating and sleeping in blissful subterranean solitude beings.