First day of dormouse training!

This week I officially started my dormouse disturbance licence training (woohoo me!!!). It was all very exciting, and I had an amazing morning on Monday learning all about dormice out in the field. In today’s article I wanted to share my first experiences, what actually is a dormouse licence and why I want one!

So, what is a dormouse disturbance licence…. Also, what is a dormouse?

Okay, lets start off with what actually is a dormouse because honestly most people hear the word mouse and immediately jump to- pest, rodent, likes cheese… Well, dormice are indeed a rodent however they are technically in a different taxonomical family to normal mice, and they also look a bit different to your usual mouse as well.

The UK has two species of dormice- Hazel dormouse (native) and the Fat dormouse (non-native). My dormouse training is all to do with the hazel dormouse, an endangered species protected by UK and International legislation making it an offence to deliberately kill, capture, or disturb a hazel dormouse. It’s also illegal to damage or destroy its breeding site or resting place and if you want to check nesting boxes either for scientific research or planning purposes a disturbance licence is required.

So, why do I want a licence?

There are several contributing reasons why I am training for a dormouse licence:

• It may be useful if I do research in that field.
• It is useful for jobs within the wildlife sector- rangers, ecologist etc.
• I have plenty of spare time at the moment to commit to the training requirements (It can take up to two years as you need to be able to demonstrate working with dormice at all seasons/life cycle stages and need two independent already licenced referees to support your licence application).
• I want to spend my life working with wildlife and this gets me one step closer to that goal.
• Dormice are super cute (I mean come on who doesn’t want to be able to go search for them in a forest!)

So, what was it like in the field?

Monday was my first training day with one of my referee organisations, we spent all morning (8.30-12) checking over 50 dormice boxes in different locations across an estate and I honestly had the best time! Unfortunately, there wasn’t a single dormouse to be found- however there was evidence to suggest they were definitely there, and I got to see lots of different wildlife at the same time. During our checking we came across 4 boxes with wood mice in, one housing a shrew and a large quantity housing blue tits (who didn’t look very happy being disturbed!). Although we didn’t see any dormice, we found evidence of their presence in the form of hollowed out hazelnuts (with the specific dormouse bite marks), and several old dormouse nests from previous occupants. We also found a single antler on one of the trails, so I assume there is a lopsided deer walking around somewhere!

My next dormouse training with this referee is in a months’ time, so fingers crossed for some dormice at that checking day!

A blue tit nest inside one of the nesting boxes and a dormouse nesting box from afar- notice that there is no entrance because they are located at the back of the boxes to dissuade birds!