With about 1,700 species, the rodents are the largest of all the groups of mammals. Characterized by continuously-growing, chisel-like front teeth that can gnaw through almost anything, they include rats and mice, voles, squirrels and beavers.
SAFETY TIP
Mice and voles can carry several quite unpleasant bacterial infections, including leptospirosis or Weil’s disease. It is very unlikely that you will contract anything nasty from the animals in your garden, but it is a wise precaution to wear rubber gloves when cleaning your mouse table, especially if you have any cuts on your hands.
Although not the most welcome of garden guests, because of their liking for newly-sown peas and other vegetables, these little mammals can be amusing to watch and, of course, they attract a number of equally fascinating predators, including stoats, weasels and kestrels. I doubt if there is a garden anywhere without a few mice and voles, but they rarely show themselves and you will have to give them a bit of encouragement if you want to watch them.
The woodmouse is the mouse most likely to be seen in the garden. Look for its bulging eyes and very large ears. It lives in hedgerows and compost heaps, in the woodpile or under the garden shed. The house mouse has smaller eyes than the woodmouse and lacks the white belly. It normally stays close to houses and sheds.
Michael Chinery
Its large eyes and huge ears indicate that the wood mouse is essentially a nocturnal creature. It is hardly ever seen by day.
A vole has a shorter and blunter snout than a mouse and its tiny ears are almost hidden in its fur. The bank vole, which is identified by its reddish-brown fur, is common in many rural gardens, where it forages in hedge bottoms and shrubberies. It also climbs well and is not averse to a meal of raspberries and other soft fruits. The much duller field vole likes more open areas with long grass, including orchards. If you have room to lay down some corrugated sheets you might well find field voles nesting under them.
Colin Varndell
The bank vole is active by day and night. It eats some worms and insects, but it is largely vegetarian and seeds are its main food.
Colin Varndell
This little field vole exhibits the typically blunt snout and small eyes of the voles. Almost entirely vegetarian, it is most active at dusk and dawn.
Although absent from Britain, the garden dormouse is widely distributed through Western Europe and is one of the most attractive garden visitors. A little smaller than a rat, it is readily distinguished by the bushy black and white tip to its tail and the black ‘mask’ enclosing its eyes and the base of each ear. Easily lured with nuts and fruit, sometimes it will take up residence in boxes intended for birds. Like the closely related glis-glis (see here), it often gets into houses and makes a lot of noise when scampering around the loft at night. It can also produce considerable mess with its droppings and is not averse to hibernating in the spare room!
NOSY SHREWS
Shrews are commonly confused with mice, but they are readily distinguished by their long, slender snout and tiny ears. They are not rodents but belong to the same group as the hedgehog and the mole. Shrews hunt for worms and other creepy-crawlies in the hedgerows and long grass by day and night, but rarely break cover.
WILDLIFE PROJECT – BUILDING A MOUSE TABLE
Just as birds come to your bird table, so mice and voles can be persuaded to visit a ‘mouse table’. You need some kind of board, roughly 50cm (20in) square, although the dimensions do not matter much, and some wire netting to make a cage over it. Netting with holes no more than 2.5cm (1in) across will allow the mice and voles to get in but will keep out most of their enemies, including cats and rats. Almost any kind of food will attract your guests, but peanut butter, chocolate, dried fruit and breakfast cereal are among the best. Make the cage about 50cm (20in) high and include some small branches, giving the animals somewhere to ‘play’ and make themselves more visible to you. Set up the table where you can see it easily, with or without binoculars – not too close to your vegetable patch! Use a torch with a red filter at first, but the animals will soon get used to ordinary light. Voles may even visit the mouse table in daylight.
Also called the edible dormouse, the glis-glis is easily mistaken for a small grey squirrel, but it can be distinguished by the dark ring round each eye. Although it is widely distributed across the European continent, in Britain it is restricted to a small area of the Chilterns where it was introduced about 100 years ago. A very sociable creature, it commonly invades outbuildings and roof cavities. Make sure your apple store is securely closed for it will do almost anything for an apple.
These are the most obvious rodents in many gardens, especially those with trees. The red squirrel occurs on the European mainland, but the somewhat larger grey squirrel – introduced from North America – is the only one found in most parts of England and Wales. The animals quickly learn to take peanuts (unsalted) from your hand, and it is fun to watch them stripping pine and spruce cones to obtain the seeds, but they can be a nuisance at the bird table. Few of the so-called squirrel-proof feeding devices defeat these intelligent creatures for long. As well as eating nuts and other seeds, they strip bark, eat fungi and dig up bulbs and corms; in the spring they eat birds’ eggs and nestlings. So it is not a brilliant idea to encourage squirrels into your garden.
CJ Wild bird Foods/David White
The red squirrel’s prominent ear-tufts develop in autumn, but gradually wear away in the winter and are absent in the summer.
Michael Chinery
Grey squirrels quickly become tame in parks and gardens where they are fed regularly, but feeding these animals is not encouraged!