The Vale of Glamorgan Dormouse Survey
The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales in partnership with the Vale of Glamorgan Local Biodiversity Action Plan (VoG LBAP) has been working with volunteers and landowners to undertake a survey for one of Wales’ most elusive and endearing mammals, the Dormouse (Muscardinus avellanarius).
The Dormouse is an arboreal mammal, spending its spring and summer in trees, hedgerows and scrub, where it uses its prehensile tail to climb from branch to branch in search of insects, flowers and fruits. In autumn and winter the Dormouse hibernates in a small woven nest close to or on the ground, where it will stay until the flowing spring.
Nationally the Dormouse has declined drastically over the past decades, due to a number of factors but primarily to changes in woodland management and fragmentation of habitat, which result in small isolated populations. As a result of the decline, the Dormouse now enjoys full legal protection and increased conservation concern in Wales.
The Vale of Glamorgan supports large areas of broadleaved woodland habitat, connected by long mature hedgerows all of which is ideal habitat for Dormouse. However, despite this only a few historic records of the animal exist.
To try and find our Dormice specially designed nest tubes and boxes were placed in several of the most suitable woodlands and hedgerows across the VoG, in an attempt to encourage nest building. Dormice build characteristic woven nests from honeysuckle bark and fresh leaves and are quite unlike other small woodland rodents. In total over 300 nest tubes and boxes have been placed in 8 woodlands in 2008 and have been checked on a monthly basis since.
Another way to identify Dormice is by the way they open Hazel nuts (cobs). They do this by creating a small round hole in the shell, leaving very few gnawing marks, unlike wood mice and bank voles, which also eat hazel nuts.
To date the survey has been unable to find any new records of Dormouse, but it is hoped that with the continued support of volunteers and landowners, more woodlands can be surveyed and in time eventually lead to the discovery of the rare and often overlooked Dormouse.
In order to help in the survey the Wildlife Trust is asking for members of the public to report any potential sightings of Dormouse or their characteristic opening of hazel nuts.
Funds for dormouse survey work in Carmarthenshire
WTSWW has been lucky to receive financial support from Carmarthenshire County Council (via their Countryside Council for Wales grant) to undertake some dormouse survey work in the area around Trust reserve Rhos Cefn Bryn, in Carmarthenshire.
Rhos Cefn Bryn is made up predominantly of wet grassland (“rhos pasture”) with some woodland, and a network of dense hedgerows. It lies near the village of Llannon on the Cross Hands to Llanelli road, in an area of Carmarthenshire that is well known for its importance for dormice. The reserve has its own small, but strong population, which is monitored monthly by reserve warden Jaqueline Hartley, who checks the large numbers of dormouse boxes and tubes on the site.
This latest funding from the council will allow the Trust to find out more about how the reserve’s dormice fit into the surrounding landscape. The grant will pay for a number of dormouse boxes and tubes which can be used in neighbouring woodlands and connecting hedges, to find out whether our dormouse population is connected to others nearby. Trust staff will also spend time analysing aerial photographs to look at woodland and hedgerow connections in the surrounding area, to determine where these critical links are strong, or weak and in need of improvement. We hope that this will lead on to further work to strengthen the habitat in the surrounding area.
With this extra knowledge and by working with neighbouring landowners, we help to improve our understanding of the wider landscape in which the reserve sits, and hopefully improve things not only for our own dormice, but for their neighbours too!
Spring arrives for dormice at Rhos Cefn Bryn!
Spring has officially sprung, and thanks to monitoring by reserve voluntary warden Jacqueline Hartley, the awakening of the dormice at the Rhos Cefn Bryn nature reserve in Carmarthenshire has been spotted.
During the first monitoring visit of the year on 18 April, a single torpid female dormouse was recorded in one of the boxes. She was looking a bit damp and spiky, but was soon brushed off and returned to the box, none the wiser.
This record is good news, after two bad summers and all the dormouse records from the site in 2008 being of male dormice. However, in 2008 Jacqueline’s efforts of monitoring dormouse tubes in the hedges were also rewarded with a dormouse nest record from a stretch of hedge never previously recorded as being used by dormice.
The Trust are currently applying for funds to expand the monitoring work at the reserve, hoping to survey for dormice in other nearby woodlands and to look at the all-important connectivity of the suitable habitat by wide hedges and arboreal connections. We will also be undertaking some habitat management on the reserve to improve the small woodland block for dormice in autumn 2009.