Dormice

Dormice reintroduction June 2021 We were delighted to team up with various partners to release the 1000th hazel dormouse in Lancashire last week. Thirty animals were released into a woodland in the Arnside and Silverdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (a nationally protected landscape covering parts of north Lancashire and south Cumbria). Reintroductions are crucial …

Along with our partners at Natural England, PTES collate records from over 400 dormouse monitoring sites across the UK. The NDMP now has hundreds of trained monitors regularly checking dormouse boxes throughout the year. We’re extremely grateful to all our dormouse monitors for their great contribution to dormouse conservation. How long have you been monitoring for? …

All organisms shed DNA into the environment. Sources of DNA include mucus, hair or fur, skin, urine and faeces. This environmental DNA, or eDNA, can be extracted from samples taken in the wild (usually soil or water) and used to detect different species, measure biodiversity, and even look at the abundance of different animals. It’s …

A project at Fingle Woods A woodland conservation scheme that PTES is funding in partnership with the Heritage Lottery Fund is making new discoveries about how dormice colonise recovering habitat. The project is located in Fingle Woods, a site jointly owned by the National Trust and Woodland Trust, in the north of Dartmoor in Devon. …

Hazel dormice build different nests for different purposes: hibernating, breeding or just resting. Sometimes they don’t build a nest at all. But the different types of nests they do build might help us work out how much time dormice spend in different habitats. As part of my work at Fingle Woods, owned by the Woodland …

Voles, rats, shrews, mice, and hazel dormice can be difficult to study. Their size and behaviour make them hard to find and, living predominantly in the shrub layer and being nocturnal, makes hazel dormice even more tricky. Occasionally though, these small creatures give themselves away by their vocalisations. Whilst we may hear an indistinguishable high-pitched …

You might stumble upon a slightly frazzled looking person in a tatty woolly hat and a big purple jacket held together in places by duct tape. She may well be muttering to herself as she walks, very slowly, up and down between two lines of tape. At first glance, she appears to be metal-detecting – …

Ian Powell and the Arun Countryside Trust Few people know the woods on Tortington Common in West Sussex as well as Ian Powell. A local man, interested in natural history, he has lived his life with a passion for conserving the ancient woodlands of the Arun Valley. For two decades Ian, the principal dormouse monitor …

Lorna Griffiths, from the Nottinghamshire Dormice Group (NDG), describes how the dormice in her county are delighting the group members. In 2016 I wrote an article for The Dormouse Monitor about the hazel dormouse releases in Nottinghamshire. Since then, the Nottinghamshire Dormouse Project, which focuses on the three reintroductions, Treswell Wood (2013), Eaton Wood (2014) …

Neil Bemment, Chair of the Common Dormouse Captive Breeders’ Group (CDCBG), explains what a dormouse ‘studbook’ is, and why we need it.  The Common Dormouse Captive Breeders Group (CDCBG) was established in the early 1990s and brought together several like-minded private individuals and zoological collections interested in conserving hazel dormice. As the CDCBG population slowly …

Gemma Watkinson, a member of the Lincolnshire Dormouse Group, reports on how their hazel dormice have not been observing lockdown. Dormice find their way into a new woodland This year, even though we were only able to carry out our nest box surveys during August, September and October, the results have been really exciting! We’re …

We spoke to Great.com on the podcast series Great.com Talks With…The series explains causes like ours to listeners, in a way that’s easy to understand. The interview took place with our very own Ian White, PTES Dormouse Officer. He explains why dormice are particularly valuable in all kinds of conservation work. Dormice are an indicator …