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Nature is reputedly red in tooth and claw, things will kill each other possibly to eat or as rivals. This was the sad end to our dormouse survey today. The picture contains the body of a dormouse which has been attacked and killed possibly by a wood mouse. It was the only one we found today, making it doubly sad. To think the poor thing survived the winter then possibly went torpid overnight and met a wood mouse...
Despite this dormousing is still one of my favourite activities I'll just try and think about the live ones I've seen and all the pleasure they've given me.
Comments
Too sad
Is there a large wood mouse colony in your dormice area?. I never knew different mouse species attacked others. I know, in the northeast US, red squirrels will attack and kill the larger gray squirrels. This must be a similar dominance thing.
Karen
It's opportunism
the dormouse was almost certainly torpid which is almost like a hibernating state so they are very vulnerable, to attack by anything which gets in the tube. The wooden strip is the insert we use in the nesting tubes. In the past couple of weeks I've installed 85 of them over three reserves, I did 25 today at a nature reserve near Bridport and had to chase off three bullocks that were trying to eat them as I was hanging them in the hedgerow. I also found what looked like the remains of an old dormouse nest in the hedge, so we may eventually get some results there.
Angharad
Voles
I spent an enjoyable 30 minutes today watching a vole go about its business on the edge of the Carmague.
There is very little 'Road Kill' on the roads but the woodlands are very quiet. Hardly any songbirds doing their stuff.
Apart from two Black Kites first thing this morning the only other bird to write home about was the two meadow pippits I saw while crossing the plateau that separates the two Gorges du Tarn.
Off into the Carmargue tomorrow until Friday.
Samantha
It's possibly quiet
because of the hunting that is done there. The French will shoot and eat almost anything.
Angharad
I suppose hunting might
I suppose hunting might explain the shortage of cyclists (to connect this with another recently posted blog).
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
I was given to understand
Red squirrels were engaged in fighting off grey squirrels because the grays are technically European invaders in the red squirrel territory.
Old Mother Nature
"Nature is reputedly red in tooth and claw..."
If one were really aware about what routinely happens in the wild, I don't think one could bear the idea. Long, slow, extremely painful deaths... Amputations without anesthesia, etc.
Old Mother Nature is a Witch with a capital "B".
-- Daphne Xu
Though sad
- to us - it's just how wild life goes. Mum feeds blackbirds from the hand at her back door, and they are flitting about feeding their new young. However, sparrowhawks also visit the gardens, and will inevitably take young birds to feed their own.
At least a dead dormouse is better than no dormeece.
"Reach for the sun."