Newborn mice make an early arrival

By Ehsan Khaleel
Asst Editor, SAM Daily Times

The mild winter has led to some early arrivals at a wildlife centre.


A litter of seven harvest mice was born at the WWT Slimbridge centre in Gloucestershire, England, earlier this month.

At birth, each youngster was only the size of a baked bean but now they are about half the size of an adult harvest mouse.

The mice are part of the Back From The Brink collection at WWT Slimbridge, which highlights wetland mammals that have been threatened with extinction.

Harvest mice are a wetland species but gained their name from adapting to live in cereal crops. However, with the arrival of combine harvesters, they have returned to the safety of the wetland reedbed habitat.

John Crooks, mammal manager at Slimbridge, said: "As the winter has been quite a warm one, they have arrived earlier than expected – normally we wouldn't expect to see them until at least February."