A confetti of leaves swirl down from the canopy, crunching underfoot as Ian White, dormouse officer of People’s Trust for Endangered Species, leads us along the woodland rides. As creatures of woodland edge and understorey, dormice are among our most threatened mammals, thanks to the decline of traditional woodland management.
They are also tiny, nocturnal and predominantly arboreal, only going to ground to hibernate, so the best chance of encountering one is by joining an organised box check led by a licensed handler.
At Briddlesford, the trust has established a long-rotation coppicing regime, allowing thickets of bramble to grow beneath maturing hazel stools. This provides dormice with a network of interwoven branches to move around their territory and a plentiful supply of pollen, berries and nuts to feed on throughout the year. It is impossible to see more than a couple of feet into the scrubby understorey, and this, Ian tells us, is a good way to judge how suitable a habitat is for dormice: the denser the better.
Anticipation builds as we locate the first box and Ian stuffs the entrance hole with a duster before cautiously lifting the lid. A loose duvet of green-tinted leaves indicates that a dormouse has been in residence, but the nest is unoccupied.
We are no luckier with the next few boxes. But then, like a magician drawing a rabbit from a hat, Ian’s hand emerges from box seven gently grasping a ball of caramel-coloured fur. A twitching pink nose fringed with a fan of dark whiskers pokes out from between his thumb and forefinger, followed by a pair of eyes as round and dark as blackcurrants.
Dormice need to weigh at least 15g to survive their winter sleep. This juvenile male is a healthy 17.5g, but when Ian probes inside the woven ball of stripped honeysuckle bark and hazel leaves in a neighbouring box, we glimpse a litter of four unweaned young. Barely two inches long and with their eyes only just beginning to open, these babies must double their weight in the coming fortnight if they are to stand a chance of survival.
