The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2704 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

---

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.
@@@@@

I changed into my riding kit and donned a gilet, the sun was nice but that breeze was cool verging on cold. I slipped on my cycling shoes and did up the ratchet fixings on them then clomped out to the shed with my helmet and mitts in my hand. Unlocking the door I brought out the three bikes we’d be using, mine was the Specialized. By the time the other two had arrived I’d checked the tyres and pumped some air into one of Trish’s.

“Can I have some pedals like Trish’s, Auntie Cathy.”

“Let’s get you used to riding the bike first, Trish has had hers for some time.” She had basic toe clip things, Hannah had simple pedals which are safer to use for beginners. Hannah had ridden bikes before but I wanted her happy with the different feel of a road bike and the brakes and gear changers. A few more rides and I’ll feel happier about changing pedals for something a bit better.

Riding with these two wasn’t going to be much of a workout but it had to be better than sitting about. We set off at ten miles an hour and I was expecting them to complain in half a mile. To my surprise they didn’t, in fact Hannah asked if we could go a little faster, so I increased it to twelve miles an hour.

Okay it wasn’t racing speed but my companions are only ten years old. I thought they did really well and on the way back, Hannah actually set the pace at fifteen mph. Trish struggled but wasn’t going to let another girl beat her, so she gamely stayed with us. An hour and a half later we were home, having had a cake and a drink whilst out.

“Goodness, you all look a bit flushed,” declared Simon.

“We’ve been cycling,” I said stating the obvious, we were all wearing cycling gear.

“Ah, so it wasn’t shark fishing?”

“Simon, use your loaf for more than making sandwiches. Do we look like we’ve been shark fishing?”

“Now you come to mention it, no you don’t.”

“We couldn’t get Kiki to act as bait for us.”

“As a dogfish?”

That was genuinely funny for him, though dogfish are small sharks, being cartilaginous fish unlike herring which are bony fish. It’s thought the sharks and their kin are older species than some bony fish but are so successful that they still compete with their younger brethren, who frequently end up as meals. Sharks are extremely efficient hunters being designed for finding and catching prey which can vary by the size of the hunter. Great whites, such as featured in the film Jaws are thought to take prey items as large as elephant seals, which can weigh up to a ton. Interestingly, the largest of the sharks, the whale shark, eats tiny creatures like plankton and is relatively harmless.

I get confused as to the status of sharks, sometimes we’re being told they could be endangered or certain species are, the next it appears they’re laying waste surfers and divers along the coasts of Australia or California. However, one thing which humans do which is despicable, is to make shark fin soup, a Chinese delicacy and frequently this means hunters simply cutting the dorsal fin off the back of the shark and leaving it to drown. The rest of the fish isn’t used and it’s done on an industrial scale, with areas the size of football pitches being used to dry the fins in the sun. I believe after pressure from various conservation bodies, several governments have pressured the Chinese to control the hunting of the sharks.

I’m not a good swimmer so the idea of scuba diving doesn’t really appeal, besides the experts like Cousteau made it look so easy, anyone who can’t do it after a five minute lesson, seems to be disappointed. I’d love to see beneath the sea, but don’t think I’d ever make the grade for serious diving. I’ll stick to swimming in a pool, preferably the one in the yard of the villa in Menorca.

I was genuinely pleased with the girls, they’d both risen to the challenge and given me a gentle work out and we’d done about a dozen miles. Hannah was asking about longer rides and I pointed out that would involve some hill climbs. Trish seemed to lose interest at this point, but Hannah was still keen.

Then it was a case of a quick change and off to do the dormouse count. Danni had been supposed to help us and when I texted her, she apologised and said she’d forgotten. I told her not to forget her soccer game.

At the woodland, we entered the survey area and both of the girls had something to carry. Trish had the big bag for placing the nest boxes in when we suspected there might be residents, while Hannah carried my spring balance and a small bag for weighing any we found.

Unfortunately, I had to check all the boxes because neither of my assistants was tall enough to see into the boxes nor to lift them down off the posts or trees they were tied to, so that fell to me. We had forty boxes to do, though most would be empty, we should find one or two occupied. Delia arrived after we’d done the first quadrant, which had proved fruitless. Now we had two adults it would move along a bit quicker. Apparently, she’d had to wait for her mother to come home before she could borrow the car to drive out to us. She had sent me a text but I’d not heard it arrive.

Hannah got to handle her first wild dormouse, a young male who simply blinked back at her when she held him. I took a photo to record the event. Delia got to weigh the second one which was a larger specimen and appeared unchipped according to my reader, so while they checked the next couple of boxes, I injected a silicon chip under the skin of its back and recorded the number of it. We’d recognise that mouse if we caught him again. When I released him he seemed none the worse for his ordeal.

Trish go to do the last mouse we caught—to weigh it and sex it. She was spot on in identifying it as female and we discovered it was two years old and had been previously chipped. I checked the number against my list and then recorded it again as present.

My three companions were all enthralled by meeting our little furry friends and Hannah said she wanted to be a biologist too. Trish was more circumspect though when I suggested she could always do quantum biology, she sounded more positive. I found the ordinary stuff challenging enough without thinking about the effect of proton tunnels in birds' brains. Nah, I’m just an over qualified bean counter, but I enjoy it.