Harvest Mouse hunting in Herts

In early November, 2009, I attended a private small mammal trapping session organised by a friend. The event was held at a nature reserve near Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire, with all the trapping carried out by two informative and experienced local mammal experts.

The site is well known for a healthy population of Harvest Mice, and for this reason the event was attended by the UK’s mammal listing elite. As a relative newcomer to this side of the hobby, I was able to put faces to names, and meet some very interesting and friendly people.

Despite a night of rain, the experts were confident our traps would yield some good mammals. I must admit to feeling slightly less optimistic, although I was happy enough to be proved wrong when our very first trap held this Harvest Mouse!

Interestingly, all the Longworth traps were placed on platforms slightly off the ground, and well into the vegetation. This method worked extremely well as the majority of traps held a captive mammal of some sort or another.

I didn’t keep an exact count, but all together we must have scored 8 -10 Harvest Mice and double figures of Wood Mice (below).

We also trapped 3 Pygmy Shrews and the same number of Common Shrews, including this ‘white-eared’ variety.

We were also give the chance to take some more natural photos as the animals were released. Photography is not my strong point and this Harvest Mouse was the best I could manage.

At this point I must stress that the trapping was carried out by professionals with the appropriate licences. Plenty of food was placed in the traps, including fly castors for the insectivorous shrews. For our benefit, the traps were in situ for a couple of days allowing the animals to become used to the free food and shelter. For this reason, many of the mammals had been trapped several times.

In all it was a fabulous event, extremely well organised and very successful. I gained a lifer in the form of Harvest Mouse, and I was able to hang out with some fascinating people.

A big thank you to all involved.