Dormouse activity in my site in 2016

I have been in partial hibernation this last couple of months, hence the lack of blog posts. But I have managed to do somethings, one of which is sift through my dormouse data from last year. I’ve made a little animation showing how dormice and other animals have used the boxes at my monitoring site over the last couple of years.

 

It’s great to see dormice making use of the boxes we put up in 2015. Hopefully it means this year they’ll start making use of the boxes we put up at the start of 2016.

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Dormouse box check, August 16

As we assembled for this month’s box check I was in two minds about whether to go ahead with it. It was raining, which isn’t ideal, as you don’t want any disturbed dormice getting soggy (their fur isn’t waterproof). And it was quite windy in the car park on top of the ridge of the North Downs. The forecast said it should just be a shower. But the wind was due to double by lunchtime. It’s just not sensible to be in the woods on a windy day.

But the volunteers had travelled to get there (giving up a precious Saturday lie-in). And I would struggle to find time for the check another day this month.

In the end I decided to see what it was like at the site (a 15 minute walk away from the car park, and a bit more sheltered), trusting that the forecast would be right about the shower, and that we’d finish the check before the wind picked up.

Once in the wood, the wind became less noticeable. The leaves were rustling, but the branches were still. So at least it was safe for the volunteers.

We started, as always, with nine boxes we put up last year across the path from the rest. It was where we had found a dormouse last month, so a promising place to start. The dormouse had moved on from last month’s nest. But, a few boxes later, we hit gold.

A lively dormouse jumped out of the box. Once we had bagged it up, it was clear that he was a male in breeding condition. It’s usually quite hard to determine the sex of a dormouse, but that wasn’t a problem with this fellow. While he was safe and dry in a weighing bag I explored the nest for any other occupants, and found a beautiful pregnant female. This was fantastic news – it’s great to see breeding happening on that side of the path. Both dormice safely returned to their nest, we carried on.

Last month we had a couple of bees nests in dormouse boxes. We approached them with caution, watching and listening for any signs of bees. They seemed to have left the first nest, and, as we watched, a shrew emerged from the second. I’m guessing that one no longer has bees in. But we’ll wait til next month to clean it out, to be on the safe side (the bees seem to enjoy lulling you into a false sense of security at my site).

As the check progressed the rain eased up, although by that time most of us had soggy feet.

Dr C checked the last box. Last month it had an empty bluetit nest in it. If it was still disused this month, we’d clean it out, like we had with the other manky bluetit nests. As he slid the lid across, we saw it had been transformed in the last month. No longer a shallow open nest, the box was full of moss (like a wren’s nest), with leaves and honeysuckle bark as well. Although not a classic dormouse nest, we were both suspecting dormice, when a golden face appeared against the perspex.

Dan, a volunteer who is working towards his license, had the job of bagging the dormouse, who turned out to be a lactating mother. In the nest cavity we could feel some young, but, given the less than ideal weather, and their vulnerability, we decided to leave them in the warmth and safety of the nest, and return mum to them as quickly as possible.

Mummy dormouse

It was a wonderful end to the check, and I am very excited to see how they are all getting on next month.

Scilly or shrewd?

The lesser white-toothed shrew has one of the smallest distributions in Britain of any British mammal. It is found only on the Isles of Scilly (a idyllic group of small islands about 30 miles south west of the tip of Cornwall) and some of the Channel Islands. Hence they are often referred to as Scilly shrews, (although it’s not that unusual in Europe).

I’ve had rather mixed success at seeing shrews for my British Animal Challenge. I have seen common and pygmy shrews, but only when they’ve happened to be in dormouse boxes I’ve been checking, not when I’ve specifically been looking for them. Water shrews have proven even harder. After hours, over several days, of standing by a pond where I know they live, I still haven’t seen one (although I think I heard it). So, keen to maximise the of seeing one during my stay on Scilly, I did some research.

I emailed the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust, to see if they had any advice. They replied, very helpfully. The best island to see them on is St Agnes, as work has been done to eradicate rats on the island, which has helped shrews as well as seabirds. That was encouraging, as I was planning to spend a week camping on St Agnes, not just a day trip. I also asked someone from the RSPB on Tresco, and local Isles of Scilly naturalist, Will Wagstaff for advice on how best to see a Scilly shrew.

Once I arrived on St Agnes, I was on full alert for shrews (luckily Scilly is only home to one type of shrew, which simplifies identification). Shrews have fast metabolism, and have to eat frequently, so they are active both day and night. Every stroll was slowed down by my staring at the stone walls that line every road on the island. My ears strained to hear the rustle of foraging, or a high-pitched squeak as two shrews meet. At night I used my powerful headtorch to try to spot light reflecting back from a shrew’s eyes, but all I saw were rabbits and pinpricks of light reflecting in the eyes of spiders and moths. I needed to change my strategy.

One of the easiest places to see shrews is on the boulder beaches, near the high-tide line of dried seaweed, where they come to forage. It’s not that they’re more likely to be there than elsewhere on the island (in fact, they seem to prefer being near houses), but you stand more chance of seeing them there as there’s less vegetation to hide them. So, after five days of no luck with seeing shrews, I decided it was time to get serious: I needed to spend some time on a beach.

Beach on St Agnes

On a sunny afternoon Dr C and I found an empty beach, and settled ourselves down on the large boulders at the edge. Armed with binoculars and camera, I scoured the seaweed line for shrews, while Dr C quietly read his book. There was plenty of birdlife, including a fleeting glimpse of a kingfisher. After 45 minutes of hard looking through the binoculars, constantly alert, Dr C got my attention. He’d heard a sound, and then saw a shrew’s nose poking out from a gap between two rocks, just a foot away from where his foot was resting. I had missed it.

The boulders where we saw Scilly shrews

I was partly encouraged – we knew now we were definitely in the right place. And partly frustrated at missing one so near me. Mainly I was amused that while I’d been scouring the distance through binoculars, there was one so close. I think the shrew must have had a sense of humour.

Not long after the Dr C’s sighting, I spotted a grey back and tail scuttling between two rocks a couple of metres from me, and heard a squeak and then some twittering. A little later I spotted a womble-y nose poking up by Dr C’s foot again. So, I didn’t quite manage to see the whole of a Scilly shrew in one go, but if you put together the bits I did see at different times you’d be able to get a whole animal.

The things that struck me from the sighting we must either have been very good at keeping quiet, or the shrew wasn’t too bothered by our presence. It’s not often a wild mammal will come that close to you (even a house mouse will keep its distance).

So, another successful day for the British Animal Challenge. And one of the pleasantest so far – sitting on a beautiful, empty beach on a warm, sunny afternoon, seeing a species for the first time. What more could I want?!