Studham

I couldn’t believe it when I started up the car first thing this morning and put it into gear. As I moved forward there was a horrible grating noise. I put it into reverse and there were further grindings and the back of the car lifted alarmingly! It turned out that a rear brake shoe had seized. “Please, not today,” I groaned to myself! But I’m forever in debt to Lee who came over from Tavistock Motors and, with a bit of clever manoeuvring, and a whack with a hammer, got me going. I was over an hour late, but had nothing to lose and so headed south to Studham where, guided on the mobile by Pam, I caught up with the local Dormouse team in the depths of an ancient hedgerow just in time to meet this character…

….a typically winsome Hazel Dormouse! This was the second Dormouse that Steve, Pam, Fiona, Fay & Ali had found as they checked the specially-constructed Dormouse boxes.

And here’s a photo of the very cosy des res! This was a female, and she had constructed a typical nest, skilfully weaving strips of honeysuckle bark into a round sphere and then adding concentric layers of leaves.

Of course, certain birds also take advantage of the Dormouse boxes. Here’s a Blue Tit’s nest that we found in one of them. Sadly, the parents must have been disturbed and deserted, leaving these five eggs as a poignant reminder of just how precarious life can be in the wild!