Haynes

Dave Parsons recently found a Yellow-necked Mouse next to the freezer in his garage. He has also trapped House Mouse and Wood Mouse over the year. Still not having seen Yellow-necked Mouse in 2010, I set up a number of Longworth traps in various places, and have since been waiting in hope.

Nothing yesterday but, this morning, Dave rang to say that the doors on two of the traps in his garage roof-space were shut. The first trap revealed this individual. Yellow-necked Mice are bigger than the more common Wood Mouse, and share several distinctive features. The relatively large ears and eyes look good for Yellow-necked.

And the dark ‘stripe’ on the dorsal area, extending between the ears and onto the face, looks good too.

But this is the clincher. A terrible photo, but one that clearly shows the ginger ‘collar’ which gives the Yellow-necked Mouse its name. This is the best photo of the underside that I could get due to the frenzied ‘bouncing’ around of this Tigger-like rodent….another Yellow-necked Mouse trait!

Unfortunately, the Mouse in the other trap escaped, but I'm convinced that it turned around and smirked at me before disappearing behind a gap...that's one trait the guides don't mention!