On the Trail of the Elusive Dormouse

Young Wood Mouse (not a dormouse)

On a sunny Friday early this September we joined the brilliant Paul McNeill to carry out a dormouse survey at Ham Hill Country Park.

Thanks to Stink Films and a number of other forward thinking production companies, we will be planting 3000 trees in this special wildlife have in November this year. This new patch of woodland 🌱 will bridge two pockets of existing woodland both of which have dormouse populations.

We sadly didn’t find any in the 50+ boxes that we checked but it wasn’t a huge surprise due to the UK’s hot dry summer and the stress that would have put on them. We did however find a family of wood mice 🐁 🍂 🤎

Dormice are slow and finding food 🌰 & water 💦 would have made them vulnerable to predators. Not finding them does not mean they aren’t present, but it does likely mean their numbers are currently low.

Nature 🍂 🍁 🍃 is incredible however! In response to such a hot dry summer the woodland fruit 🫐 & nut 🥜 trees have entered panic mod

e (we’ve all been there) and are now throwing out bumper crops of produce in the hope of propagating. This will give surviving small mammals the boost they need to fatten up ready for the winter. A final dormouse survey will take place end of November to track developments. The natural world is just so clever.

19gm Female Dormouse from Ham Hill 2024