Harvest mice surveys and starling murmurations
Paul Steven’s weekly diary runs as the Wildlife Sightings column in the weekly Observer series of newspapers.
When people think of our wetland reserve they usually think of ducks but many small mammals live on the site. In addition to water voles and dormice, Arundel Wetland Centre is also home to a population of harvest mice. I hope to establish how large the population is and where they are onsite when I begin regular surveys for t mice next year.
To prepare for next year’s surveys I have been running trials with humane traps for small mammals. These Longworth traps are designed to capture small mammals with the minimum of discomfort. A tunnel contains the door tripping tread bar and opens onto a nest box with bedding material to ensure that the mice are comfortable until release. I have been adjusting the sensitivity of tread bar that closes the door - harvest mice only weigh around 6 grams so it has to be a hair trigger.
I have had some success catching some mice by placing the boxes a few feet off the ground on wooden stakes in the reedbed. When I had the traps to close to the ground they were catching wood mice and bank voles ahead of harvest mice. Now that they are a few feet off the ground I am getting only harvest mice. My Bushnell camera trap has been capturing video showing how the acrobatic harvest mice have no problems shimmying up the reeds and swinging like little Tarzans around to the nest boxes!
The iridescent blue kingfishers are brightening these grey November days by putting in regular appearances on our perches at the Scrape and Sand Martin hides. At the Ramsar hide they perch on the willow to the right and left of the hide.
This morning on the water’s of Arun Riverlife, just outside the visitor centre’s large gallery windows, I saw a little egret, a cormorant and a heron as well as a sprinkling of tufted ducks, a few pochard with a few Canadian and greylag geese. On the days when it’s raining, visitors don’t have to venture out to see some of the amazing wildlife in the Arun Valley.
In the late afternoons the hundreds of pied wagtail coming into roost in the reedbeds have been joined by a small starling murmuration. Sixty starlings became over 100 by Sunday and numbers should keep building!
