'Dropping' of a different kind

Tuesday 16 May 2023

Heathland Heroes

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We are creating the county's largest block of heathland and connecting 600 acres of habitat. Our Saving Worcestershire's Heathland's Project Officer, Beccy Somers, brings you the latest news and information from this amazing project.

by Catharine Jarvis

Guest author Catharine Jarvis discovers droppings and other signs of mammals at Dropping Well Farm...

One of the great things about being a conservation trainee has been to be made aware of some key local wildlife groups. One of those is the Worcestershire Mammal Group who organise a series of indoor talks over the winter months and outdoor events over the summer months. I attended their March indoor meeting and enjoyed chatting to the members so much that I joined the group. I soon learnt about a small mammal trapping event, so I booked my place and went along to Dropping Well Farm a couple of weeks later.

Dropping Well Farm, near Bewdley, is one of Worcestershire Wildlife Trust’s newest nature reserves, with a long-term management plan in place to return the agricultural land to heathland (the Trust’s Devils Spittleful heathland reserve is just the other side of the Severn Valley Railway train tracks). The member of staff responsible for managing the reserve, Andy, was keen to hear about what we found as this was the first mammal survey and would provide him with good baseline knowledge for future ones.

When we arrived, Dom, the chair of the group and also a reserve officer at the Trust, gave us an introduction to the site and any health and safety issues. It was a lovely sunny morning and a couple of the group members, Adam and Jen, had been round the night before and set 20 small green mammal traps at various locations, each marked with a flag and marked on a site map. The most important thing about a small mammal trapping survey is to make a note of where you set the traps and to count them all back in at the end of the session so that no trap is left unattended for more than 12 hours.

Two women checking a green small mammal trap by Catharine Jarvis — Checking a small mammal trap by Catharine Jarvis

I was enjoying being out in the fresh air with skylark singing overhead so the fact that we didn’t find any small mammals in the first traps didn’t seem to matter. Members of the group chatted away and Jen explained how the green Biosphere traps worked and what they were baited with. Each one had some mealworms, strawberries and apple in them, along with some straw and grass. This meant that every small mammal that had a temporary stay in the trap would have something to eat and somewhere to bed down. A few of the traps had ants crawling in them and the slimy trail of small slugs could also be seen glinting in the sun. We walked at a good pace, eager to get round all the traps before it got too hot; animal welfare is paramount at all times.

What surprised me was the evidence of mammals we found without the need for traps. We came across a dark coloured dropping that, because of the fibrous nature of it and the colour and shape, was identified as a fox dropping.

'String' of small droppings in grass with a pen next to them for scale by Catharine Jarvis — Muntjac droppings by Catharine Jarvis

We spotted muntjac deer droppings but it took us a while to figure out what they were. They were like rabbit droppings but strung together; I thought they looked like a ‘necklace of poo pearls’. They were only about 1cm in diameter, round and shiny - good indicators that they were muntjac droppings. No one in the group had ever seen them like this before and one of the possible reasons suggested was a lack of roughage in the diet.

We also spotted the tell-tale signs of badger. There was large hole on a sandy bank, with darker sand and materials spread out downhill towards a metal fence. One of the group members suggested it could be an outlier sett. Next up came evidence of moles as we came across a series of molehills; one had a hole in the centre but although we waited to see if a mole would appear, sadly it didn’t.

We located a couple more traps but each time the words ”it’s open” were uttered, meaning that nothing had triggered the traps and they were empty. This wasn't to be the case for all traps, though. Finally, at one placed in the end of a rotten tree stump, we heard “its closed” and we knew that something had triggered the trap door.

Wood mouse in the corner of a box with some dried grass, sunflower seeds and a bit of apple by Catharine Jarvis — Wood mouse by Catharine Jarvis

Jen picked up the trap and carefully emptied the contents into the clear plastic box. A wood mouse scurried around the sides of the box and we all gave a cheer that we had found our first mammal of the day. Once we had all had the opportunity to look, Jen carefully emptied the contents of the box near the spot where the trap had been located overnight. The wood mouse scampered off.

At the next trap (empty, of course), members of the group found a few snails and a cardinal beetle along with lots of very small yellow ladybirds all over the trap. Luckily, we did have one more occupied trap - the very last one. There was a wood mouse in this one too and whilst many people were watching it, I and a couple of other members of the group watched a common lizard that was basking on a log by the fence line.

Once the inhabitant of the last trap was let loose in the undergrowth we all said our thank yous and goodbyes and headed home. I was really pleased at what I’d seen over the walk and I’m sure that Andy will be interested to hear all about what we found on his reserve.