Picked
up another bag on Wednesday evening. Bizarre how coincidences keep cropping up.
My earlier post about how wildlife seem to see some of our litter as an
opportunity was more than illustrated by my find on Wednesday. This grotty
piece of foam (originally it could have filled a cushion or other item of
furniture) provoked a small surge of outrage as I passed deciding to go back to
collect it at the end. Those kind of things take up space in the bag and do
tend to smell yuk, besides it looked wet and heavy.
It
didn’t look any better when I returned. Attacked it with my Streetmaster
litterpicker and came to a complete standstill. You have to look carefully at
the picture but between the grass on the left and the leaf on the right are some
brown shapes. I could see them quite clearly because they were wriggling
around. A nest of baby mice. How wonderful. You can see how the mother has
formed the nest from beads which she must have spent hours nibbling from the
foam. I couldn’t see her but then I didn’t delay in putting the foam back over
the nest. I only hope I didn’t cause any harm. Given the horrible rain we’ve
had in the last few days I guess that upcycled rubbish has provided a pretty good
shelter.
Had a little look online and can only guess but quite possibly
these are young wood mice. If you know better I’d be glad to learn.
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