Parishes and Groups

At the end of March, 2012, Matthew Careswell was just finishing some work on a hedge close to the village. He stopped for a break and could hear a high pitched squealing coming from the ground which he tracked to a small heap of dead leaves in a shallow hollow about 1.5 metres out from the hedge.

Investigating further, he uncovered a hibernating Dormouse and luckily he recognised what it was and contacted Cornwall Wildlife for advice.

Questions are often asked about the use and provision of bat boxes.

Tony has offered some words of advice on the subject and there is a pdf leaflet available from the bat Conservation Trust (see below for a download).

The Siting of bat boxes.

Tony Atkinson explains how local recording fits in with the national monitoring schemes:

National Bat Monitoring Programme: 2011. A. Atkinson

Hibernation for dormice is still the subject of considerable research and as with other species, the length of the hibernation period and how often and to what degree the animals wake up seems to be dependant on several different factors such as temperature, initial body weight, food supply etc. When an animal wakes up it uses a lot of energy so if there are no food supplies to replenish this, survival is less likely.

In October 2010, some members from LAPWG and the Cornwall Mammal Group attended an event at Locks Park Farm near Hatherleigh in Devon where the evidence of dormouse activity comes from nests in hedges, not from nibbled nuts!

POND CHECK ~ help stop the spread of these non-native pond plants by assisting ERCCIS with this new project. The details below are taken from the page on their web site. They provide downloadable ID sheets, management advice and recording forms.

Findings

The following information will help to identify the sounds from the Heterodyne Bat Detectors available in our Equipment Inventory.

Identification of individual species is difficult as unless you are working with bats, it is unlikely that you can get close enough to recognise the key features. Echolocation is probably the most helpful approach, but even here some training is required and the equipment to identify individual species is not cheap.