A HAZEL dormouse has been discovered at West Green Common, Hartley Wintney where Hart’s Countryside Service has been trying over the past ten years to get the woodland back into a hazel coppice cycle for the benefit of wildlife.

 A local group for children called Fleet Wildlife Watch, run by local volunteers Heather Hickman, Karen Charlesworth and Vicky Harrison discovered the adult hazel dormouse in a nesting tube in newly cut hazel coppice!

 This is the first record of hazel dormice using the site, and Hart’s countryside rangers are overjoyed. The Wildlife Watch group put out the nesting tubes last autumn to see if they could find any dormice and they are hoping that over the next few months more will be discovered using the tubes.

Hazel dormice are said to be a very charismatic species. They are nocturnal and arboreal, spending most of their active months in the treetops feeding on nectar, flowers, berries, nuts and some insects.

They also hibernate, gorging themselves on hazel nuts in the autumn, fattening themselves up to last the cold winter months. Over the last 100 years, the hazel dormouse has declined in both numbers and distribution, making them a protected species by law.

 Recent surveys suggest they have become extinct in about half their former distributional range. Hazel dormice are sensitive to weather and climate, both directly and indirectly, through their specialised feeding requirements.

They are particularly affected by habitat deterioration and fragmentation and also by inappropriate habitat management. For these reasons, they are highly vulnerable to local extinction.

 They are consequently good indicators of animal and plant diversity: where dormice are present, so are many other less sensitive species. The successful maintenance of viable dormouse populations is a significant indicator of an integrated and well-managed countryside.

It is not only the dormice that benefit; coppice management favours a wide range of woodland wildlife. After cutting, the increased light levels allow existing woodland-floor vegetation to grow vigorously. Often brambles grow around the stools, encouraging insects, or various small mammals, that can use the brambles as protection from larger predators. The open area is then colonised by other animals such as birds and butterflies.  

Hart Countryside Services’ thanks go to Mark Hazel, who does the coppicing at West Green Common and Heather Hickman, who provided, placed and checked the Dormouse nesting tubes.

 Notes

West Green Common historically was wood pasture, providing grazing for domestic livestock and a harvest of branches from the open-grown trees. Traditional wood pasturing was probably still taking place on the Common at the time of the building of West Green House in the early 17^th Century, which led to the land becoming part of a landscape managed to enhance the house, with the construction of formal ponds in the south east corner and the introduction of trees, most obviously the planting in avenues of Oaks.

In some areas, under the venerable Oaks, there is old hazel coppice. Coppicing is a traditional woodland management technique where trees that are cut to ground level then sprout vigorous new growth. After a number of years the new growth can be harvested and used for fencing, hurdle making and a variety of crafts. Typically, a coppiced woodland is harvested in sections or coups, on rotation. In this way, a crop is available each year somewhere in the woodland. Coppicing has the effect of providing a rich variety of habitats, as the woodland always has a range of different-aged coppice growing in it, which is beneficial for biodiversity.

We plan to bring the rest of the Common under a coppice regime, even doing a trial area of Hornbeam coppice. Let’s hope that this will encourage and protect this wonderful little mammal in Hartley Wintney for a long time to come.

Further details contact the Countryside Service on 01252 623443  or ring Hart DC press office on 01252 774461.