Hazel Dormouse: Jack in the Box

The last time we wrote about the hazel dormouse was this time last year, just as the UK ecology season was drawing to a close. You can check out that post here. Now, we’re at that time again and we’re not quite sure where the year has gone. In fact, we’ve just made our annual…

Amongst the World’s Smallest Squirrels: The Bornean Least Pygmy Squirrel (Exilisciurus exilis)

A Squirrel No Larger Than a Mouse Zipping about high in the trees of the lower Kinabatangan rainforest lives a tiny squirrel. No larger than a mouse, it is less than 8cm in body length and weighs less than 20g. Click to zoom in Up the Canopy Platform A platform has been attached to a…

The Hazel Dormouse AKA ”The Sleepy One”

Oh, To Sleep! With the number of dusk and dawn bat surveys we’ve undertaken this season approaching 200 between us, it is refreshing to survey dormice once in a while. It seems especially fitting as we have come to identify with the etymology of the word ‘dormouse’ which some sources reckon comes from the Old…

Red Squirrels on Brownsea Island

For some time now, we’ve been meaning to visit the remnant population of native red squirrels on Brownsea Island here in England. Last week, the opportunity finally arrived when a number of bat surveys came up in Poole, the town’s harbour in which Brownsea Island is located. Getting to Brownsea Island During the day between…