Healthy Pendugwm dormice

Another dormouse best box check at Coed Pendugwm; always a pleasure! The favoured box once again was home to a little family of dormice. This box appears to be favoured this year, containing this elusive creature during every check, four months in a row!

Last month, a mother with three closed-eyed youngsters, were a very pleasant surprise. I'm happy to say that this month the family are still doing well. Now juveniles of approximately 6 weeks old, two males and one female, they are nearly as big as mum (10.5g to her 16.5g).

Once the weighing and sexing was complete, the family were 'posted' back in to their box. By the time it was Mum's turn, she'd got quite sleepy and was certainly in no hurry to check on her family!

Weasel

Two cheeky little weasels on Cors Dyfi yesterday afternoon.

The cold March has been devastating on many of our mammals here, thankfully not these two.

When a weasel got caught in a Longworth trap...

Great video of a Weasel coming out of a Longworth Trap, by Amanda Wilson:

These fantastic little mustelids do occasionally get in to these small mammal traps, which proves just how small there are!

Hog attack

It's Hedgehogs again, but how could I not post this amazing footage of a vicious attack which took place over my feeder, in the early hours of this morning!

I can confirm that both walked away seemingly unhurt!

Merlin & the Hedgehog

I know it is another post about Hedgehogs, but when you can get such great views of them right by your back door, it is hard not to be entranced! This time I would like to share a moment from last night when my old dog, Merlin, showed how dogs and Hedgehogs can mix!

It's a good job my other dog, Cerrig, was out with me (Glow-worm hunting!), as he is not so tolerant. After two years, he is still frightened of them and would have been shrieking his head off, had he been there!

D Day

No, not the military landings, but a 'landing' for me... today I handled my first ever dormouse! In fact, by the end of the morning, I'd had the pleasure of six of these cutest of all mammals in my hand! If you think they look cute in photos...

...you should see them in the flesh! And their fur feels soooo soft.

Five of the six were, like the one above, very sleepy and endearingly snuggled into my hand, whilst the sixth nearly escaped, she was so active!

Out of 50 boxes, 6 dormice is a good number to find. This delightful patch of woodland, near Machynlleth, obviously provides all they need.

Many people will be aware that the Hazel Dormouse receives the highest level of legal protection in the UK, meaning you need a licence to even look in the nest boxes, let alone handle them. As I am currently working towards my licence, I am very grateful to Nick Young for sharing this experience with me today.

The Fabulous Four

Finally a gorgeous summer's evening - not a cloud in the sky (for a while), calm & quite warm. The insects were out in abundance and so were their main predators. Within 300m of home, in just 30 minutes, I saw and heard (on my Batbox Duet bat detector) four different species of bat!

First it was our largest, the Noctule, which was flying quite low, foraging over the fields on the outskirts of the village. Shortly after I heard and then saw a Common Pipistrelle, on a commute. Wandering on to the bridge and leaning over the parapet, I was treated to a cacophony of bat sound, as below me, Daubenton's skimmed low of the water's surface, catching their prey, whilst a little higher, Soprano Pipistrelle's sought the smaller aerial invertebrates, such as midges.

Well worth taking the dogs for an evening stroll on a night like this!