Tomorrow I have to fight my way past the Glastonbury Festival traffic to get to Cheddar - yep - the place named after the cheese, or I suppose it could be the other way around, and its famous gorge - so maybe an appropriate place to gorge on cheese. Contrary to popular opinion I won't be doing that - gorging on cheese, that is - I shall take tuna and cucumber to start with and crisps to end with, but enough of my packed lunch cullinary delights.
Why are you going to Cheddar? I hear you all say - I do have quite good hearing. Well, I am going to do the only officially recognised dormouse course run in the UK, organised by the Mammal Society, on the Ecology and Conservation of Dormice.
The bit I'm most looking forward to, apart from my tuna and cucumber sandwiches, is the field session when we go out to find and hopefully handle a dormeece.
So why am I telling you this? Well apart from making you all jealous, you'll understand if Bike suddenly becomes dormouse oriented with loads of useless facts and figures about the lovely critters.
(And John, I won't be bringing any back for Bonzi or your two mass murderers).
Angharad.
Comments
Cathy ought to be invited
At the very least, Cathy ought to be invited to lead the field portion of this course.
While there, she might meet someone who looks slightly familiar. I can see them sitting together on a log enjoying their tuna sandwiches, chatting about dormeece.
"I won't be bringing any back for Bonzi"
Bonzi will not be pleased when he reads this. Retribution, perhaps even vengeance will be order. I would carefully check your slippers before donning them!
Kris
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
I's off dormousing again.
Angharad, shouldn't you bring Spike with you? Just don't take Meems, or you'll have the cute critters fainting away, or jumping down any available top.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
With modern airfreight methods
You could easily and reliably ship a nest of life dormice to my house.
Our cats are old, -- 15 plus -- ill -- beginning stages of kidney diseasw -laid back and rodent friendly or so they say. Well except that the other day the more feeble of the two, the girl, caught and proudly killed a young rabbit that was stupid enough to hide by our side door stoop. And my sister tried to stop her but once her radar locked, FOOM! And she has a bell, multiple metal licenses on her collar.
A couple dozen would do, we could set up a breeding colony along the fence lines of the properties here.
John in dormouse friendly Wauwatosa
P.S. Want any Asian carp? We may soon have them in Lake Michigan due to the barge companies on the Illinois River and the f**king Army Corps of Engineers. A few million year of traffic vs seven billion in sport and commercial fishing in the Great Lakes. Or all the 100 plus invasive species that have come in ballast water in just that last decade or two as Congress *debars* making overseas ships flush or GASP treat their tanks. That's to protect less than thirty million of overseas shipping via the St Lawrence Sea way.
John in Wauwatosa
Carpe' Carp!
Seize the Carp!
Don't forget the
zebra mussels that have come into the inland waters and caused millions of dollars in damage ust so they don't have to bother cleaning their bilges and ballast tanks. They have recently been found all the way down here in Central Indiana starting to plug water intakes in water treatment plants and some other places. Makes me pine away for something as simple as dormeese. Ang, I hope you get to see and maybe handle some. I thik that would be a real treat. And we might even get to see some neat pics.
Zebra Mussels
I was going to mention them, too. They are a well known invasive species around here. I remember that, when they were first introduced, they caused some trouble with the water treatment plants. They have since handled the situation the same way they do where the mussels are native. They increased the size of the intake pipes. :-)
The truth is, it has been a mixed blessing. They are filter feeders, and have managed to make the water of Lake Erie clearer. It still isn't as clear as the other Great Lakes, but we could see the bottom of our rudder the last time we went sailing there.
The beaches sometimes become littered with the shells. We collected some from Grand Traverse Bay for crafts a couple weeks ago.
I recall someone in a wild foods list trying to eat them. The texture isn't very nice, but you can make a good stock for clam chowder with them.
They are orffly cyute
Hi Anghie,
Thanks for sharing the picture.
with love,
Hope
with love,
Hope
Once in a while I bare my soul, more often my soles bear me.
Dormice!
Not only saw some but handled two of the cuties, they are absolutely gorgeous. The course was brilliant, everything I could have wanted and more.
On the downside - spent £70 on books, and could have spent more (ran out of pennies).
The link has photos and videos of dormice:
http://www.arkive.org/common-dormouse/muscardinus-avellanari...
Angharad
Angharad