Super furry mammals
Over the winter and early spring months, the KSCP have
been busy crawling around in the undergrowth, scrambling up and down banks
and through bramble patches. With a dedicated selection of volunteers, we’ve
been trying to think like small furry creatures. You may well be asking
yourselves why we have been doing this, and at times, particularly on
freezing cold frosty mornings not long after it got light, so were we. The
answer is we have been surveying to find out just what mammals live where.
This helps not only in the future management of sites but to build up a
picture, both county and country wide, as to where exactly mammals are
found.
Each survey took three consecutive days. A general walk
around was first carried out to look out for signs of mammal activity.
This could be droppings, burrows, nests, fur or food remains, for example.
Any sightings of a mammal, such as a squirrel in a tree, were recorded
over the three day period. We also set 50 traps (kindly lent by the Kent
Mammal Group) around each site. These are animal friendly traps - they are
made up of a warm nest chamber, which we fill with food and bedding, then
a tunnel. The animals come through the tunnel on their way to the nest
chamber and tread on a tiny bar which then closes the door behind them.
They then eat and sleep until we check the trap and, once they have been
identified and sexed, they are released back to where they were found.
The first survey took place in January at Tyler Hill
Meadow Local Nature Reserve. Overall, the survey should good numbers of
small mammals such as wood mice, bank vole, field vole and a single pygmy
shrew. Other mammals sighted included moles and squirrel’s.
The second survey was of the section of the disused
Elham Valley Railway through Kingston on the 20th – 22nd of January.
Despite the step sided embankment and the cold weather, results were
excellent: wood mice, bank vole and even several yellow-necked mice.
Barton Court School was the final survey location, where
the 50 traps were set around the school grounds during the Easter holidays
and checked with the help of sixth form students. Although numbers were
lower than in previous sites, we still found
both wood mice and a single bank vole.
