Micromys minutus
... Wendy Fail, for her successful attempt to reintroduce harvest mice to Northumberland.
As a doctoral student back in 2004, Fail bred 240 of these lovely and elusive little creatures in captivity, before then releasing them over a two month period on to a coastal nature reserve with plenty of reedbeds for them to hide in.
Although subsequent trap surveys suggested that the mice hadn't survived and formed a viable population as hoped, it now seems - 15 years later - that descendants of the original animals are in fact breeding, as freshly woven nests have been discovered at the reserve.
Contacted with the news, Fail was said to be ecstatic - and I'm pleased for her - as I am for this particular species of mouse, which, like many other UK species, is in sharp decline due to all the usual reasons (including habitat destruction and modern farming methods, for example).
A priority species for conservation and protected by law, the harvest mouse is Britain's smallest rodent (weighing no more than a tuppenny bit) and the only one with a prehensile tail.
Preyed upon by pretty much everything - including owls, cats, and even other mice - the harvest mouse is also surprisingly vulnerable to prolonged periods of cold, wet weather; not ideal when you live in England (even if primarily confined to the South East of the country).
A priority species for conservation and protected by law, the harvest mouse is Britain's smallest rodent (weighing no more than a tuppenny bit) and the only one with a prehensile tail.
Preyed upon by pretty much everything - including owls, cats, and even other mice - the harvest mouse is also surprisingly vulnerable to prolonged periods of cold, wet weather; not ideal when you live in England (even if primarily confined to the South East of the country).
She hasn't, by her own admission, saved the world. But Fail has succeeded in making it just a slightly more magical (and less lonely) place and for that I congratulate her.
(Let's just hope that the pine martens that have also recently returned to Northumberland don't eat them ...!)
