Thanks to the Derbyshire Mammal Group for taking on the county‘s first dormouse reintroduction and to everyone who came at short notice to help put up nestboxes (203 in 2003!). We had less than two weeks notice to organise this and were hoping for what we were told by staff at Royal Holloway, University of London was the minimum number of volunteers necessary - five! I‘m sure that all fifteen of us who turned up on the first day appreciate how difficult the job would have been with only five. It took three of us all day to find suitable places and put up the pre-release cages with Fiona Sanderson who brought the boxes and cages from Royal Holloway. However, thanks to Debbie Court spreading the news, we had a good team of hard-working volunteers and managed to get all the nestboxes up before Don MacPherson from Royal Holloway and Nida Al-Fulaij from the Peoples Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) brought the thirtyfour dormice. These came in individual nestboxes that were placed directly into the pre-release cages, but Don was good enough to show us all one of the dormice and answer our questions before we set to work.
Help was also plentiful during the ten-day
feeding programme prior to release. It took approximately an hour and a half
to two hours to visit and change food in all 15 pre-release cages. Diet consisted
of sunflower seeds (our dormice prefer the striped), peanuts, apple, grapes
(large black seeded have been most popular but hard to find in the shops)
and rich tea biscuits, I haven‘t been buying the low-fat variety! The
food containers, large plastic half-bottles that fit into a piece of pipe,
were emptied, cleaned and fresh food supplied daily. We found that the round
bottles were best (obviously) but we were supplied with some square ones and
one dormouse managed to squeeze the wrong side of one of these and get stuck.
When feeding in the evening nearly all the volunteers saw the dormice out
in some of the cages and the animals were unperturbed by our presence.
Release day was the 8th July - only one dormouse was up and waiting that morning but because we didn't want him, or her, to escape too quickly we left that cage until the afternoon. By the 20th July only two of the 15 cages appeared empty and unvisited. The rest had food taken regularly, which was being topped up daily.
On 27th September, the nestboxes inside the pre-release cages plus 202 individual nestboxes were checked by volunteers, Dave Mallon and Steve Docker have licences to carry this out. One nestbox could not be found, neat rows of easy to find boxes were not possible in our wood. The check revealed ten dormice in nestboxes (six original micro-chipped animals, three new animals and one that escaped as the box was being approached). No animals were found to be using the pre-release cages. The average weight of the micro-chipped animals was 20.3g (range 17g to 23g). The new animals had an average weight of 15.7g (range 12.5g to 18.5g). Thirty-four dormice were released in the summer so lets hope that the rest have managed to find themselves natural sites within the wood to construct their nests. A second nestbox check is planned towards the end of October and then another in the spring of next year.
Thanks again to the Derbyshire Mammal Group for supporting this reintroduction so wholeheartedly and for planning the efficient future monitoring. The offer of help with winter management necessary for good dormouse habitat is also very much appreciated.
Tina Wright
Drawing of dormouse by Laura Berkeley.