Tidying out the my rather run-down shed, I found a pile of leaves & twigs in the corner under a cupboard. After starting to rake them out an unhappy hedgehog emerged, so I put the nest back and hoped I hadn’t driven it away. And yes, photos on the trailcam show it is still there. We’ll put out some cat food for it periodically, so hopefully it sticks around.
Usually the mice here are Wood Mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus), but this time the cat brought in a House Mouse, which is greyer, less pale underneath and has a fatter, scalier tail. Happily there’s no evidence of them actually in the house, but not a big surprise to have them around the garden. Now we’ve recorded 3 species of mouse.
Been too busy to take a proper look at and post these pictures from my son’s camera trap, but here we have a Brown Rat photographed on 30th October and a nice picture of one of the neighbour’s cats. The night time pictures are pretty good, so we’ll try again and see whether we have any more rodents or anything more interesting!
The cat brought in another new mammal for the garden this week; a Brown Rat (Rattus norvegicus). It’s a bit of a surprise that it took so long, but as we have recently got some chickens, I expect that this explains the appearance of rats.in the garden. Hopefully there’s not too many of them.
The cat caught this weasel somewhere nearby the other week. It’s a bit of a surprise to find one so close to the village, though I have seen a few along the lanes nearby. It’s also a bit surprising that the cat wanted to take on something as potentially feisty as a weasel. The weasel was heavily infected with mites, so maybe was not in the best of health.
This very cute fox came into the garden this morning. It’s the first we’ve ever seen here, though we do see them from time to time in the surrounding countryside - but not normally in the middle of the day. Our cat chased it, which was also a surprise as I’d have thought if anyone it would be the fox doing the chasing.
#737 Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes)
Not much wildlife to be seen at the top of a wintery Cleeve Hill today, but plenty of tracks to see in the snow. Lots of rabbits and birds of different types, and also some Roe Deer slots.
I apprehended the cat following this shrew across the lawn, presumably having just caught it somewhere nearby. It’s a Common Shrew (Sorex araneus) and my first garden shrew. It is identified as Common rather than Pygmy Shrew by the thin, hairless tail and by the brown flanks sandwiched between its dark back and pale belly. Shrews secrete an unpleasant tasting fluid from their skin, which makes them less appetising to predators, and especially pampered cats,, so this one was relatively unhurt.
I’m really delighted to record my first Hedgehog in the garden. Maybe it’s a relatively young one as it does not seem that big, and it was a surprise to see it out and about in the mid afternoon. It has found a nice place to rest up during the day in a huge pile of leaves behind a dense clump of bamboo, so I’m hoping it will stick around. There should be plenty enough for it to eat around the garden, but we will put some water out for it and maybe some food if we can find a way to stop our cat from eating it first.
Other mammals putting on a show yesterday evening were our resident bats; they are pipistrelles, but I’ll need to buy or borrow a bat detector to be sure exactly which species..
#631 Hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus)
Attended a really interesting GWT course on Small Mammals and their ecology at Greystones Farm. After some background on British small mammals, we learned how to set Longworth traps and run surveys and also recognise small mammal bones from Barn Owl pellets. On a wet day our traps looked inviting, lined with bedding hay and furnished with a variety of different foods - for vegetarian voles, omnivorous mice and carnivorous voles - but placing them for a couple of hours in the afternoon we didn’t catch anything. However, some traps lines that had been set early in the morning were more successful, and we caught 2 Common Shrews, a Bank Vole and (very exciting!) a Water Shrew that had been foraging quite far from its normal riverside habitat. The mammals were sexed, weighed and returned back, none the worse for the experience. I thoroughly recommend the course and will definitely go on some more GWT courses. It was really good to see these mammals alive and close up.
Check out GWT courses at https://www.gloucestershirewildlifetrust.co.uk/courses
Passionate about nature, based in Gloucestershire UK; this site is about creating a wildlife friendly family garden and exploring the diversity of animal & plant species that share it with us.
As a nature lover and wildlife gardener I started wondering about the biodiversity in my backyard and just how many species from plants to insects to birds to mammals might live in or visit it.
Much of the wildlife in my small, village garden has been present right under my nose for years without my really appreciating it, so on the way I am learning a lot about different species and how to make a wildlife-friendly environment for them; also getting engaged more in conservation activities around Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and the Cotswolds.
My garden species tally started from zero on June 1st 2018, the target was 1000 species, which I eventually hit in June 2024. But there’s still plenty to see and learn about.
I'm very interested in your comments & advice: whether it's about the blog, some help with identification or just how to make my own little Eden better for wildlife. So please leave a comment or drop me a line if you feel like it!
Graham Tompsett
microedenproject@gmail.com
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