The first Dormouse survey of the Reserve for 2013 was completed last week. Of the 60 dormouse boxes checked, most were either empty or contained recently vacated blue tit nests. In just a handful of cases there was either a brood of nearly-fledged blue tits or a second brood of tiny birds or eggs. However, one box contained two sleepy, healthy dormice, a male and a female. Other boxes showed signs of having been used by dormice at some point.
Only seeing two dormice and no young ones at this time of the year is not necessarily a bad sign. They are principally nocturnal and could well be sleeping somewhere else and not breeding yet. When the boxes have empty nests the tit nests can be identified as they are almost totally composed of moss (with some horse hair or sheep wool when the animals are nearby), while the dormice prefer a layer of leaves as a roof, with a definite small ‘burrow’ inside it.