September 11th 2005: "Sleepy" mice and trying not to say "Aaah"...

I drove down to Bramley Frith Environmental Education Centre (Bramley Frith EEC) in Hampshire today with Toby Nowlan and his brother to have a look at a British mammal I shamefully knew virtually nothing about and had never seen - the Common or Hazel Dormouse Muscardinus avellanarius, a four inch, fuzzy-tailed, round-eyed bundle of golden fur that has declined throughout most of its UK range.

Named in part for its liking for mixed woodland that - particularly - includes coppiced Hazel Corylus avellana, and for the fact that it is the only UK mouse species that hibernates ("dor" is from the French dormir=to sleep), the nocturnal Dormouse is fixed forever in my imagination as the dozy story-teller in Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" - which is about as much as many of us know about it I would suspect...

Bramley Frith EEC is set in 27 hectares of ancient, mixed woodland surrounding the Transco Bramley Substation near Basingstoke. Dormice have been found in the woods here for many hundreds of years, and a superb 3 hour introduction to this wonderful species is regularly run at Bramley Frith by resident warden Andrew Cleave MBE (photos below left and right) - an expert communicator who puts his passion and knowledge across with a mixture of easy humour and facts (though - be warned - he does frown on members of the public cooing over his charges: in a preamble to going out into the wood our group of about twelve adults and children were "banned" from saying "Aah, sweet" - we all failed miserably, but I guess he's used to it...).

The highlight of any trip like this - of course - is actually seeing a Dormouse, and we weren't disappointed. The woodland is dotted with about 200 nest-boxes, and part of our tour was the chance to participate in census work where a number of active boxes were checked for breeding success and the weights of the dormice taken to check how much fat they were putting on before settling down for the winter. Members of the public - quite rightly - aren't allowed to handle the dormice, (Dormice are protected under legislation under Annex IVa of the EC Habitats Directive, Schedule 5 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and Schedule 2 of the Conservation (Natural Habitats etc.) 1994, Regulations and can only be handled by holders of a licence issued by English Nature), but there are plenty of opportunities to see them - mainly through the opaque plastic bags used to hold them for weighing, but also "in hand" as Andrew explained various aspects of their ecology and morphology.

And what a lot to learn there is! Aside from such obvious features as its furred tail (unique amongst British mice), they are very loose-skinned (enabling them to store enough fat to survive hibernation), own remarkably long whiskers (used as they run around the tree-tops in the dark looking for food), and have specially-adapted "sticky" pads on their feet. Dormice are omnivorous (eating Hazel nuts, fruit,and even insects) but when it comes to nesting they are very fussy and fastidious - their breeding nests are flea-free and have no smell at all (we checked) and are tidily constructed, often made up of strips of interwoven honeysuckle bark. They actually make another nest for hibernation - which is made on or very close to the ground (one of the more unusual threats Dormice face in the UK is being rooted out when hibernating by introduced pigs and wild boars!).

One curious behavioural trait that makes conserving these beautiful animals difficult is that dormice absolutely refuse to run across bare ground to reach suitable habitat. Fragmentation of woodlands by road building and housing is effectively cutting off dormice populations from each other - potentially resulting in restricted gene-flow problems and making it harder for dormice to re-establish themselves in areas where they may have once been found. As Andrew explained as we wove around tangles of blackberry bushes and ducked under overhanging branches, for a woodland to be suitable for dormice it must have plenty of "corridors" and interconnecting tree branches: ironically in creating "rides" through woodlands to encourage plant growth and butterflies some Reserve managers are actually making their woodlands unfriendly for dormice - conservation is nothing if not complicated!

Dormice aren't the only mammals being supported by the woods at Bramley of course, and as we walked around we saw Brown Hare, Roe and Fallow Deer, and an active Badger sett: near the end of the walk we also checked some Longworth traps and were shown the bulky Yellow-necked Mouse, another common inhabitant of the woodland.

Our "tour" ended with a tea and (really delicious) cake back in the centre where we were shown slides and had the opportunity to ask Andrew any questions that we hadn't already bombarded him with as we walked round the wood!

I really enjoyed the afternoon, and learnt a great deal about this usually unseen but beautiful little animal: if you'd like to do the same I'd throughly recommend Bramley Frith EEC. You won't be disappointed (even if you're a birder who normally wouldn't know one mouse from another if they ran over him).

NB Bookings are necessary and need to be made in advance. There's a fee payable with the booking which is put towards the running of the Centre and the conservation work done here: once part-funded by Transco, the Centre is now funded by Hampshire Education Authority and by the money it raises itself through visitor charges, lectures, and gift sales - so buy something when you're there!

Contact details:

Bramley Frith Environmental Education Centre

greatnuthunt.org.uk

People's Trust for Endangered Species: Hazel Dormouse

UK Biodiversity Action Plan

wildlifetrust.org.uk/dormouse.pdf