Country diary: Going house to house looking for a dormouse | Alexandra Pearce-Broomhead

Bodmin, Cornwall: These red-listed mice are still sleeping off the last of winter. As we check for activity, we enter a world of velveteen moss rugs and squatting shrewsSpring's threads are woven throughout the woodland: clutches of primroses, emerging bluebells and tightly wound fern fronds ready to unfurl. But at the bases of trees, hazel dormice will still be hibernating, curled up among damp mosses and leaves, soft bodies dozing the last of the cold weather away.I meet the licensed ecologist Ellie Smart and trainee Peter Roseveare as they clean out last year's dormice nest boxes and check for signs of activity. Just over a century ago, hazel dormice were so prevalent that they were often kept in the pockets of Victorian schoolchildren - but populations have dropped 75% since 1996, with local extinctions in 17 counties, primarily caused by the loss of appropriate woods and hedgerows. Continue reading...