Rarely seen, but you will certainly know if you have one in your garden or on your golf course. We all know what mole hills look like, but they are more likely to appear in Mr Mole’s feeding ground and not necessarily where he resides.

Locating his den and underground highways to his feeding areas are key to successful trapping of Talpa Europaea.

They feed almost entirely on earthworms but are opportunist and will eat any grubs or insects they come across in their network of feeding tunnels.  They have been known to eat mice or shrews and I have removed dead moles from traps that have been partially cannibalised.  Contrary to popular belief, they do not eat your vegetables, but can cause damage with their tunnelling.  The resulting molehills, which are the soil from excavations which the moles push ahead of them, not only look unsightly, but can damage farm or garden machinery and can seriously taint hay or silage crops.

Incidentally, the average sized garden is unlikely to be “infested” with moles. Apart from during the mating season they are quite solitary animals, so the chances are, it will be just the one offender destroying your lawn and flower beds.