2012-Dormouse-Monitor-Vol-2.Pdf
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volumevolume 2 2 2012 2012 thedormouse monitor the newsletter of the national dormouse monitoring programme people’s trust for endangered species | INSIDE Seven sleepy dormice How dormice use their whiskers Setting up a dormouse support group volume 2 2012 Welcome Contents Seven sleepy dormice 3 International dormouse exchange: studying dormice in Japan and Hungary 4 How can dormice climb in the dark? Insights into dormouse whiskers 6 Dormouse nests in strange places 7 Okehampton Primary School project 8 Welcome to the autumn 2012 edition of The Putting down new roots 9 Dormouse Monitor, we hope you enjoy reading it and if Welsh dormice and other mammals 10 you feel inspired to send us an article for a future edition New dormouse training material 11 we would be delighted to feature it. Or if you have any How to start a dormouse support group 12 dormouse images we could use to illustrate an issue Sussex helpers wanted 13 it would be wonderful to receive them. Branching out: planting trees for less 14 Please don’t forget to enter your 2012 records online or Donkeys and dormice in Devon 15 send them in to us as soon as you have completed this And fi nally... 16 year’s nest box checks. Once all the 2012 data is in it will be analysed to see how this year’s poor weather has aff ected numbers and the national population trend. The variability in the British weather must be aff ecting our dormice. We have had variable winter temperatures, a cold and wet summer and an uncertain start, end and People's Trust for Endangered Species duration to our British 15 Cloisters House summer. This makes habitat 8 Battersea Park Road London management of the woods SW8 4BG the dormice are living in so crucial to their continued www.ptes.org survival at a site. And what’s Tel: 020 7498 4533 good for dormice is also [email protected] good for many other species Registered charity number 274206 too. If you would like a copy of our leafl et on managing The National Dormouse Monitoring Programme is funded by PTES and Natural England. woods for dormice do let us The Dormouse Monitor is compiled by Nida Al Fulaij & Susan Sharafi . Cover image kindly provided by Hugh Clarke. Printed by 4-print on environmentally friendly paper. know. The opinions expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily those of the People’s Trust for Endangered Species. Best wishes Nida Al Fulaij & Susan Sharafi 2 the dormouse monitor 2 the dormouse monitor volume 2 2012 Seven sleepy dormice On possibly the only day it I did not realise having have six monitoring sites using the boxes that we didn’t rain this summer our so many dormice in torpor and Brecknock Wildlife Trust had pre-seeded with hay at dormouse visit to Crychan together was that unusual is contracted by Forestry the start of the season. Hay Forest (mid Wales) proved until PTES got in touch Commission Wales to was put in every other box remarkably easy. Not only after seeing the photo on monitor dormouse numbers as an experiment to try to did we have good numbers Brecknock Wildlife Trust’s in the forest and to provide put off nesting birds and to of dormice (25 in 100 boxes) Facebook account. In that management advice. It is encourage dormice to make but they were all fast asleep. same visit we also found a only in the last three or nests. In fact it seems to have As every dormouse monitor group of fi ve, two groups so years that dormouse encouraged them so much knows this makes the job of three and two lots of two numbers in our nest boxes that they may have stopped of weighing and sexing dormice. A volunteer who have really increased. Prior making the traditional the animals much easier, has boxes in another part of to the harsh winters of 2009 green-leaved nests. especially when you fi nd the forest had one group of and 2010 we were fi nding If anyone would like to seven in one box! six, two groups of fi ve and lots of wood mice and very know more about this These seven were all in one group of four. Is this few dormice. Since those monitoring project please torpor with weights ranging unusual? two winters wood mouse contact me. Thanks must from 11.5g up to 20g. Were We are really pleased numbers have dropped be given to our dedicated they a family group from to be fi nding such high dramatically and dormouse volunteer dormice monitors last year? A check on the numbers of dormice in numbers have increased. and to our funder Forestry 2011 data revealed that our boxes as Crychan and Did the harsh winters help Commission Wales. in September eight active Halfway Forest are Forestry dormice by seeing off their dormice were found in a box Commission Wales-owned competition? Beverley Lewis very close to this year’s box conifer plantations with It is also interesting to Brecknock Wildlife Trust of seven. Could this be the some remnant broad-leaved note that all the dormice we blewis@ same family group? woodland in patches. We found in the June visit were brecknockwildlifetrust.org.uk. Ian Brooker the dormouse monitor 3 volume 2 2012 International dormouse exchange: studying d OurOu story began ten years the main area of research, ago at the Hungarian which included collecting dormousedo conference, where droppings, looking at food I metm our most well-known remains, taking fur samples and beloved Japanese and also collecting possible colleague,col Professor Shusaku sources of food such as MinatoMi who was busy diff erent plants during the givinggiv dormouse pins to day and insects at night. participantspa and turning The basis of the research themth upside down, to teach was under-pinned by a hishi European colleagues long-term nest box study, Photos: Haruka Photos: Aiba and Manami Iwabuchi thatth Japanese dormice which I have been running haveh a very special habit now for over 12 years. A ofo moving along branches total of approximately 400 withw their heads down. nest boxes and nest tubes It took further conferences have been erected in eight forfo the working relationship diff erent habitat types to start. I remember the UK throughout an area about conferencec in 2008, where I 30km north of Budapest. gaveg a presentation on the In 2010, at the 10th ecologicale parameters of Conference of the Parties of co-existingc dormice. Three the Convention on Biological dormoused species occur Diversity (CBD COP10), I had in Hungary – the hazel the chance to visit Japan (MuscardinusM avellanarius), myself. Shusaku organised thet fat (Glis glis) and the several events and a booth forestfo dormouse (Dryomys at the COP10 to showcase nitedulanin ), and in several aerial animal pathways. Pat habitatshah all three live and Mary Morris also visited together,to even in the same Japan on this occasion and vegetationve plot. Professor spoke at these events. After MinatoMi became interested COP10 Shusaku invited us in the topic and wanted to give a talk to the students to learn more about this and staff of the Kiyosato phenomenonph himself. He Educational Experiment raisedrai funds to visit Hungary Project which also gave us for research purposes for the opportunity to visit the severalse years; once on his world famous Dormouse ownow and also with his Museum. wwife (Chise Minato) and You can read endless colleaguesco (Haruka Aiba articles about foreign anda Manami Iwabuchi) – countries, but being fi ve times in total. there allows you to really As is usual for precise experience and understand JapaneseJaa research methods, the little diff erences. For seseveral techniques were example, if we hone it usedus to gain more data and down to our narrow topic, knowledge:kn radio-tracking, dormouse research, even night-visionni cameras though the main research andan luminous bodies - or methods may be similar, capsulesca – were all used there are always small to examine the nocturnal variations. I was amazed behaviourbe of the European by the dormouse rescue dormousedo species, in order centre, which gives shelter to compare them with those to dozens of injured or of their Japanese relatives. rescued dormice – my only Recently,Re the nutritional chance to see a live Japanese diffdi erences between the dormouse. Though we threeth dormouse species was carried out several nest box 44t theh dormoused monitorit volume 2 2012 g dormice in Japan and Hungary checks, as often happens in which will last in our nature, we only found nests memories for a very long FACT in the boxes, no animals. The time. Japanese dormouse Morris Pat dormouse nests we found FILE also had similarities to those Kristóf Hecker & Shusaku Th e only species of dormouse to be found in Hungary, but due Minato found in Japan, to the availability of diff erent and endemic to vegetation, the materials Professor Shusaku Minato the country, the diff er in many ways. Just to works at the Kiyosato Japanese dormouse mention one example: tree Educational Experiment is unlike any other bark is a typical material Project and is Director of due to its curious used by dormice in Japan, the Dormouse Museum habit of running but in Hungary this is in Kiyosato, Yamanashi along the underside replaced (in the case of hazel prefecture and Professor of of branches upside down. dormice) by dry grass. Kwansei Gakuin University The analysis of all this in Nishinomiya Hyogo PHYSICAL: soft hazel or brown fur with a dark dorsal stripe. accrued information is being prefecture.