Suzanne's Mom's Blog

I’ve been a fan of the English dormouse since performing in Alice in Wonderland at age 10. My friend Carole played the Dormouse.

Or maybe my first exposure was the A.A. Milne poem about the dormouse and the doctor. In any case, I greet news stories like this one as a matter of great interest.

Steven Morris writes, “The first black dormouse ever recorded in the UK has taken up residence in a nest box in the Blackdown Hills of Somerset. Britain has only one native species of dormouse, the hazel dormouse. The one discovered in Somerset is a hazel dormouse but instead of having the normal golden-brown fur it is black. …

“The discovery was made when staff, trainees and volunteers from the Blackdown Hills Natural Futures project were checking dormouse nest boxes as part of the national dormouse monitoring programme.

“This year, the project provided 300 nest boxes and more than 60 volunteers have installed and regularly checked them. One was found to have the black specimen inside.

“Conrad Barrowclough, the project officer, said: ‘Learning about and protecting our natural heritage is what we’re all about so finding such a rare dormouse on our doorstep is fantastic, especially at a time when Britain’s dormouse population is under threat.’

“Ian White, the PTES dormouse officer said: ‘The national monitoring programme has been running for more than 25 years, with volunteers collecting data on thousands of dormice at nearly 400 sites. Not once has anyone come across a black dormouse.’ ”

Goodness, what delightful jobs these men have! Who wouldn’t want to be a “dormouse officer”? As the New Yorker used to say, “There’ll always be an England.”

More at the Guardian, here.

Photo: Natural Futures
The first black dormouse ever recorded in the United Kingdom. What a cutie!