Vole Patrol 5 – out with the old, in with the new

Friday 11 was our last morning at Gunnersbury Triangle. Still no shrews or voles, sadly but many wood mice – over the 5 days, 42 were captured & marked and 4 escaped before marking.  Many of the 14 wood mice on our last day were returners but we had 5 new arrivals and one frequent flyer – the mouse with the dodgy haircut known as “Dirk’s mouse” (see photo). This was the 5th (I think) time we’d captured her – including a rather surprising three times in one day. She was obviously very pleased with the standard of accommodation and catering provided – the epitome of “trap happy”. I hope she wasn’t too disappointed to find that the traps disappeared after Friday morning. We’ll return for a second round of monitoring in late summer.

Dirks mouse on the final day at Gunnersbury
Dirk’s mouse on the final day at Gunnersbury

Then, this morning, 9 of us (Huma, Lindsay, Nicola, Ian, Deiniol, Ollie, Wendy, Dirk, Mark & me) arrived at Perivale Wood (http://perivalewood.k-hosting.co.uk/) at 0615 to see what small mammals had taken up residence overnight. I’d not been to Perivale Wood before, as it isn’t normally open to the public, but it’s gorgeous. I can heartily recommend a visit to its open day on Sunday 24 April, when the wood should be thickly carpeted with bluebells. They also do a dawn chorus walk in May.

Vole Patrol Perivale Wood dawn
Vole Patrol gather in Perivale Wood at dawn (well, just after 6 and it was cold!)
Perivale Wood - the promise of bluebells
Perivale Wood – the promise of bluebells

It is mainly ancient oak woodland, whose paths are springy underfoot due to the depth of leaf mould. As we entered, we heard a great spotted woodpecker drumming, followed not long after by the yaffle of a green woodpecker. Add to that the song of robin, wren, song thrush and great tit and you get a delightful soundtrack to a morning’s small mammal wrangling.

We started in the meadow and pond area, then moved to the woodland. As we got into our stride, all of us were busy simultaneously, moving like clockwork to collect traps, measure, weigh, identify & record animals, rebait traps and then return animals and traps to where they had come from. Poetry in motion! Once again, wood mice abounded, with nary a shrew or vole to be found … yet. We live in hope!

Lindsay scribing the data
Lindsay recording the data
Vole Patrol in Perivale Wood
The team all hard at work – Dirk & Mark off to collect traps, Deiniol and Wendy taking a mouse from a for weighing & measurement, Lindsay recording, Huma & Ollie marking a second mouse before returning it to its home, Ian taking the photo, Nicola & I out of shot, returning mice and traps to the correct location.
Nicola weighing a woodmouse
Nicola weighing a woodmouse

 

Photos by Ian Alexander & me.

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