Moor Copse Dormouse Box: Check and Clean – 18th and 24th January 2015
Damian Carter (BMG Treasurer)
It was time for the dormouse boxes at
Moor Copse nature reserve to be checked, cleaned and, in some cases,
simply located. This being the first time I’d ever done this
properly, I was expecting a pleasant walk through the nature reserve,
clean out a few boxes and then wander home after a good bit of fresh
air. Well I was mostly right.
The small group of us set out with bags
of spare boxes, wire, cutters, “stuffers” Amanda provided us
with, a couple of ‘outdoor’ marker pens and Liz with a map
marking where all the boxes where. The idea being simply to clean out
the boxes, while the dormice are hibernating at ground level, re-mark
the fading numbers and replace any that were broken, or missing, and
remount any that needed it.
Wandering through a wood looking for
wood-en boxes, even with a marked up map, isn’t quite as
easy as it sounds, especially when you have to remember to look
behind you sometimes to see the ones that you’ve just walked right
past! Sharp eyes and a good sense of direction come in very handy.
So, approaching the first box I find
out what the “stuffers” are for: sticking in the hole to stop
any residents from escaping before we’ve had a chance to properly
read them their rights and evict them! After all these are dormice
boxes, not wood mice, yellow-necked mice or pygmy shrew boxes, but I
guess they can read the signs!
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| Yellow-necked Mouse |
I was actually quite surprised at just
how many of the boxes were in fact occupied. We took pity on the
couple of wood mice families we found which still had large numbers
of young in residence.
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| Pygmy Shrew |
 |
| Wood Mouse |
We had a complete range of box contents
from old mice’ nests, filled with chewed nuts; birds’ nests; an
incredibly tough, sticky and elastic hive-like nest (jury still out
on what these were, caterpillar, bees nest?); through to completely
empty – not even a leaf!
I managed to get a few photos but
sadly, like so many others, my camera skills need improving so many
came out complete blurs but here’s a few of the others. If anyone
can identify what creature was responsible for the droppings in one
of these it’d be interesting to know.
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