In our area

As autumn sets in, dormice become more active as they desperately need to eat enough food to gain the weight that will help them survive hibernation. Having spent much of their summer resting, sleeping and breeding, they then go onto spend most their waking hours eating the abundant nuts and berries supplied by hazel trees, beeches, brambles and hawthorns.  Sadly, without gaining that weight, dormice won’t survive hibernation and it is estimated that half of dormice die during their winter slumber.

There are dormice nest box monitoring schemes on a number of our nature reserves, including Harton Hollow, Brook Vessons and Hope Valley. These are all nature reserves managed to benefit the growth of the essential food plants like hazel trees that can sustain a dormouse population. The nest box schemes not only provide safe summer nesting sites for dormice to rear their young, they also allow us to check on the health of local dormice. These small rodents (which are more closely related to squirrels than true mice (wood mice and house mice being examples) live in low density and spend much of their active time hidden away from humans, so nest boxes are key to us finding out whether there are still dormice in an area and to see how their numbers increase or decrease year on year.