The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2995 by Angharad Copyright© 2016 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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It’s Monday morning and I’m sitting in my office reading about Chris Froome’s triumph in the Tour de France. A third title, which must make him special. I’ve never won anything sporting, though I did win a prize for poetry in school which hardly puts me in the same category as Chris Hoy or even Victoria Pendleton.

Instead of reading the Guardian I should have been drawing up an agenda for a meeting to discuss the next step in our investigation of hibernation in dormice. It fills me more with dread than wonder because it takes me out of my comfort zone by a long way. I’m not a lab bunny and much of this work is for that sort of scientist, the type who likes to dissect things or analyse them by destructive testing. I’d rather watch things in the wild and try to analyse what the animals are doing and why by observation rather than frying them in X-rays.

In reality I know we need both types, the lab work being used to support or challenge observed reports because sometimes what we see and what is actually happening can be very different; our interpretation can always be suspect simply because we tend to anthropomorphise things we see in other species because that is how we work. One of our major failings is to assume that because humans do certain things any other species which appears to be doing the same or similar, is doing it for the same reason as humans when it probably isn’t.

I eventually listed the items I thought as relevant at this stage and asked Diane to phone around and set up the meeting and then send out the agenda. This is usually by email, it’s quicker and more efficient and everyone teaching at the university has an email account usually ends in .ac.uk.

The rest of them morning was taken up by our quarterly finance meeting—basically to make sure we’re staying within budget and claiming all the fees or funding we’re entitled to. Sometimes getting the money for overseas students is a problem. Sometimes I think Diane could deal with the budgetary stuff as well as I do, I’m the budget holder officially, so I have to attend the meeting—only the tea keeps me awake. We’re well within budget so I vire some of the money to spend on equipment ranging from microscopes to Longworth traps.
We have a student, post grad variety, who is doing a project on owl pellets and needs a stereo microscope to identify objects in the pellets. I know a bit about this sort of thing as I did some when I was an undergrad at Sussex. You can do it with a hand lens but it’s so much easier with a stereomicroscope which enables you to see things magnified in 3D, particularly good for identifying skulls—usually in bits, so mandibles or jaw bones are the most easily recognisable element then it’s limbs and so on.

The common perception of owls is dropping from the sky onto hapless rodents who are then swallowed whole and the indigestible bits like fur and bones are ejected as pellets. However, owls also eat birds and their skeletons are more fragile and rarely survive intact enough to identify by themselves but bits of beaks do. The other thing is that little owls eat mainly insects and earthworms, so do birds of prey such as buzzards, which also throw up pellets. So effectively, things like the wing cases of insects, specially beetles may survive the digestive systems of birds as may the bristles of earthworms or chaetae. Certainly the smaller items are best seen with a microscope.

We also have equipment like trail cameras for camera trapping animals and these vary considerably. Some have black LEDs which might sound contradictory but it means the light they shine to take the photo or video isn’t visible to the object they’re filming. They can work simply with light such as just mentioned or the very much more expensive ones run on infrared so the animal’s body heat effectively lights the photo. Also some have lights to show they’re on or working which can warn the targets who then scuttle off or worse, warn some human who then either interferes or pinches it. We lost three cameras last year.

Longworth traps are designed for live trapping but only admit one animal which is caught in the nest box bit at the back of the trap. Usually we place straw in them, some seeds or fruit and some mealworms—dried variety. This is especially important if you happen to catch a shrew who need to eat continuously or they starve to death. They’re insectivorous but that includes earthworms and things like spiders and millipedes. Shrews have such rapid metabolisms that they have to continuously forage for food or die. An interesting fact (?) I read years ago suggested that the heart of a shrew and that of an elephant beat approximately the same number of times in a lifetime, the difference being that a shrew lives about a year or two and elephant may make fifty years. Makes you think just a little.

I see the Mammal Society are looking for donations for a project on water voles which involves several British universities, so I’ll send them some money—my own personal money—later on. Not quite sure how we missed out on that, possibly because we’re so involved with the European atlas—will the funding continue after Brexit happens. It might be democracy but it demonstrates that most voters are too stupid to know what they’re voting for.

Must speak to Alan to see if he’s sussed out any sites for pine martens. They occur in the New Forest, which is not far from here but I can’t find anyone who is able to tell me in what numbers and where. It would save a lot of travelling time if it were the case. I only managed the one on Menorca but it was a delight to see, nonetheless. In Switzerland I’m told pine martens can invade lofts and do damage a bit like squirrels do, or edible or garden dormice, chewing wires and other things which can cause fires or fuse electricity supplies. Edible dormice do this in the Tring area of Hertfordshire which endears them to householders no end. However, they still require a licence to handle or be removed.

The Romans used to keep them in jars to fatten them up before they ate them, but then the Romans used to eat rotting fish stew—no wonder the various Barbarian tribes overran Rome, the legions were probably on sick leave due to food poisoning.

According to the Mammal Society distribution maps, we have dormice in Cumbria and as far north as Glasgow. Both are further north than I would expect them and I wonder if they’re natural colonies or transplanted by humans and how come they haven’t been submitted to our survey project? Must try and find out. Oops, better go and collect the girls.