December 18, 1980 - Busy Woodland MouseDecember 18, 1980
Busy Woodland Mouse
Everybody sooner or later comes across'!
one sort of mouse or another. Most of us
have had our problems with the common
gray house mouse. This fellow is so small
and inquisitive that it takes special effort
to keep him from entering our home and
finding out where the food supplies are.
Then if you don't happen to actually find
him soon enough before the damage is
done you will always be able to know he's i
been there by finding his little black
"calling cards" scattered along your
shelves.
Of all the little creatures that scurry
about in one form or another in our area
the beautiful white - footed mouse or deer
mouse is the favorite of most. Typically
he's a woodland mouse in our Dart of the
land but he'll take up residency in just
about any area the country offers in-
cluding Canada. He's called a deer mouse
because of his close resemblance to the
color of the white - tailed deer, a beautiful
rich brown. He has big beady black eyes
that enable him to see well at night for it is
during this time most of his carousing is
done. This coupled with his large ears and
white underparts and feet makes him one
of our handsomest mice.
I first became acquainted with him when
I was in grade school. Our house was but a
converted summer bungalow with what
was called a Long Island cellar under it.
Because of this make -shift foundation,
there were many places that mice and
"other" casual visitors could get into and
whenever the temperature dropped in the
fall we had our usual invasion from out-
side. We could often hear them scurrying
around in the rafters and in the partitions
as we sat reading in the evening.
It was my job to rid the house of these
woodland intruders. Of course, there was
always the snap trap that would bring up
that limp beautiful body the next morning
and this disturbed me so I invested or
copied whatever makeshift live trap I
could find.
I can remember a classic book of out-
door crafts that was tattered and torn from
hours of dreaming through and it was from
this volume I built many varied live
mousetraps. Some had spring doors,
others sliding doors, others were made of
gallon jugs while still others had brown
paper stretched across a five gallon can
with slits in the top so when the mouse
ventured across to a bait he'd slide into the
container. I tried them all and had fairly
good success.
My problem was I never wanted to get
rid of them. For a while I'd keep them in
an old aquarium where I could watch and
observe them but after a while things got
sort of crowded. It was then I'd head up
into the woods and let them go. I'm sure
many of them sooner or later found their
way back into our house.
Later in life I often came across these
beautiful little creatures. Once when out
on Gardiners Island on a Christmas Bird
Count I went into an old abandoned fishing
shack on the south end to get out of the
wind. While there I lifted the cover of an
old wood stove and curled up in a neat
elaborate nest were five or six white -
footed mice in semi - hibernation. They had
made their nest out of an old mattress
from outside. They knew a safe place when
they saw it. Later I'm sure as the tem-
perature warmed up, they'd be up and
about feeding on their stored food supply
nearby.
These little fellows are great hoarders.
Often I've found their caches of cherry pits
or other seeds in old logs I've split for
firewood or even in an old abandoned bird
house. And in my garage they have the
corners gnawed off the doors just for their
special entrance. It's in underneath all the
debris when I clean up that I find their
hidden hickory nuts neatly eaten out and
discarded. There's is a life of continual
food gathering and eating. In this respect
they do a great deal of good for it's been
reported that half of their diet is insects,
the other half plant food of one sort or
another.
Once when we lived in a makeshift room
attached to a garage as our house was
being built we were awakened by the
continual scampering back and forth of
"some sort of creature ". At least that's
what Barbara called it. I put off in-
vestigating for as long as I could but
finally in the wee hours of the morning I
got up and checked every crevice in the
room. After all we did have a baby
sleeping near by us.
What I found was that a deer mouse had
been disturbed when we moved in and
Mrs. Whitefoot could not wait another
minute for she was expecting and so back
and forth all night she went to the baby's
blanket taking pieces of wool to make her
new nest under the sink. By the time I
finally located the nest, nature had taken
over and there were five tiny, naked, pink
blind baby mice. Needless to say having
babies of our own we were very partial.
The nest sites of mice are usually quite
creative. Once I found one that occupied
an old bird's nest about five feet up in some
shrubbery and I've often come across their
nests and used supplies in my bird houses
when I clean them out in the spring. Deer
mice are expert climbers and twenty feet
in a tree is no adventure to them.
Once when I was traveling with a group
of young people on a birding trip in
Jamaica Bay we spotted a saw -whet owl in
a low pine tree.Saw -whet owls are usually
not afraid of man and will let you walk up
on them quite closely. He was perched
deep in the pine and so as not to scare him
we circled the tree and all got down on our
hands and knees and moved in for a closer
look. As we did so we scared up a deer
mouse who immediately took to the tree to
escape the invading circle of people. Like a
flash the owl was on the mouse and picked
it off the limb as you would pick an apple
off a tree.
I can remember it to this day - that limp
mouse hanging under that little owl and
everyone watching one of nature's true-to-
life adventures. The mouse had become
part of the food chain of the owl.
Each has its place in the scheme of
things in life and until man realizes this
and realizes that he is just part of this
scheme we will not truly appreciate and
understand our place in the world. We
must take into account the need for
everything in the natural world.
PAULSTOUTENBURGH
trees to escape foxes, snakes and other predators.
Photo by Paul Stoutenburgh
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