Wood Mouse

With the weather turning cold, thoughts turn to our loft, or more precisely the arrival of a temporary resident or two! Like many houses in rural areas on cold nights, we tend to get the patter of tiny feet (although from below it sounds more like hob-nail boots) in the loft. These particular feet belong to the Wood Mouse (aka Field Mouse) seeking somewhere warm to spend the Winter nights.

Not being one to kill our guests we had set humane traps in the loft some weeks back, and it wasn't too long until we caught one. Because the Wood Mouse has such a huge territory (typically 3 square miles) there is no point in just putting it outside otherwise it will be back in residence in no time. Instead you need to take them at least a mile but prefarably further from the house to be reasonably certain that they don't return. This I have now duly done on no less than 3 occasions, the last being last Thursday.

One has to admire the inginuity of the mice. On checking the trap on one occasion I found it jammed open with loft insulation, and no mouse in sight. From the look of it the mouse had decided it might make a nice home, particularly as there was food at one end of it!

And the best way of getting the mouse into the trap...chocolate. We currently have it baited with an After Eight Mint!