Someone on the Wild About Britain forums told me this: that if you grab a wood mouse's tail, the skin sloughs off painfully, and then that portion of the tail dies and falls away. I found this dead wood mouse in a field and tried to move it so I could take a picture, and sure enough, away came the tail skin. It's a survival strategy, but a costly one. The correct way to hold a wood mouse is by its scruff, like the yellow-necked mouse and bank vole here: http://urbanextension.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/a-morning-with-mice-voles-shrews-moths-at-corfe-mullen-meadow-reserve/.
Short walk this afternoon down Edgeley Road revealed this water vole latrine. It seems very late in the year to be seeing latrines. Does that mean late-breeding females?
Found a dead one in the garden today, a bit wet and it's tail was also missing?
ReplyDeleteI expect it had been pulled off by a predator. A cat, maybe? Who knows.
ReplyDeleteI have put a photo at http://www.flickr.com/photos/44233922@N04/4063933573/
ReplyDeleteThat's very similar to mine, yes. Poor wood mice: their role is to be eaten!
ReplyDeleteWhat's the photo on Quoisely Bridge? It looks like musteid scat.
Well,🐀may surprise you!
DeleteThe Quoisely photo was taken last Monday 26th under the bridge.
ReplyDeleteLots of it about.
I'll go check it out! It could be mink, as there have been mink round there, but it might also be otter. A sniff would soon tell you which it was!
ReplyDeleteIs this the bridge which goes across the A49?
ReplyDeleteNo noticeable smell, but it is a wide bridge.
ReplyDeleteIt is the one on the A49.
There IS a lot there! I've posted about it. Thanks for the tip-off.
ReplyDelete