Fascinating Facts about..
Harvest Mouse
Scientific name: Micromys minutus
The Harvest mouse is Britain’s smallest rodent and has been seen by very few people in modern day Britain.
It is named as such because its home among grasses and cereal crops where it builds a grassy spherical breeding nest clearly attached to plant stems.
Harvest mice are extremely active climbers and feed in the stalk zone of long grasses and reeds particularly around dusk and dawn.
They feed on seeds, berries and insects although moss, roots and fungi may also be taken.
Harvest mice usually have two or three litters a year in the wild between late May and October or even December if the weather is mild although most litters are born in August.
Changes in habitat management and agricultural methods are thought to have caused a reduction in abundance although there have been no studies to quantify this change.
Harvest mice have many predators; weasels, stoats, foxes, cats, owls, hawks, crows even pheasants.
Harvest Mice became extinct from Cheshire but have been reintroduced to the wild through the very successful ‘Harvest Mouse Project’.
To find out more visit the Harvest mouse Project pages
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