Mouse ID

[sleipnerofasgard]

Not being an expert i would like an ID of this one please



ta

[mh68]

Not a mouse, but a Bank Vole, nice pic too

Mark H

[sleipnerofasgard]

Cheers Mark,that has just made my day,never seen one before .there were three of them running around under a feeding station

[mh68]

Theyre so common in some areas its unreal, but usually not easy to spot as they tend to stick to heavy ground cover.Feeding stations are a prime spot to find them out in the open.....nice find, and even better to get a pic too

Mark H

[sleipnerofasgard]

there was a box under the feeding station and they were moving pretty quick when they were out in the open so i was made up when you told me what it was,i was looking to find out what it was and the nearest thing was a harvest mouse but they are so rare i discarded that idea straight away

[mh68]

Harvest Mice are really tiny,and have long prehensile tails so theyre not difficult to ID. You can tell yours from a Field Vole by the tail length - Field Voles have much shorter tails (Short Tailed Vole is another name for them).
One of my regular haunts is absolutely teeming with Bank Voles, the club that run the place have mammal live-trapping sessions, and the record is 3 minutes from setting the trap to catching a bank Vole. Yet i`ve seen precisely 5 there apart from trapped specimens,and one of those was in a Foxes mouth, shows how elusive they can be

Mark H

[Bucknallbear]

Originally Posted by mh68

Theyre so common in some areas its unreal, but usually not easy to spot as they tend to stick to heavy ground cover.Feeding stations are a prime spot to find them out in the open.....nice find, and even better to get a pic too

Mark H

They are VERY common. My son has a trick question he likes to ask adults: "what is the second most common mammal in Britain?" The answer is, apparently, humans, because number 1 is the bank vole. I am told they out number us 80M to 63M or something like that. Does anyone know if this is true or an old wives' tale?