Have you ever wondered what animals live in your garden but you never see? While you are asleep in bed lots of nocturnal animals are feeding and moving around your garden and you wouldn’t even know.
I wanted to find out what I was missing so I set up some humane small mammal traps.
I caught a mouse in my garden last night!
Have a look at him in this video.

Watch the Youtube video to see me set him free and also learn how you can make your own small mammal surveying kit.

What you will need:
A cardboard tube – kitchen roll or toilet roll inside
Double sided sellotape – If you haven’t got this you can use sellotape and just fold it over on itself to make it sticky on both sides.
Scissors.
Seeds and or nuts
Flour
Ink pad
A sheet of Paper

How you do it:
Stick the tape along the inside of the tube.
Place the tube in a place outside. Either beside a wall, in a hedge or along a vegetation border.
Scatter the nuts and seeds at the ends of the tube and inside the tube.
If you want to get some footprints of your small mammal then you can put some flour at both end of the tube flattened out. Or if you have an ink pad you could place at one end with the whole set up placed on a piece of paper.
Leave the mammal sampling tube in the garden overnight. Make sure it is a dry night and check it as soon as you get up in the morning.

You can identify the colour fur of the animal in the morning by looking at the tape. It might be easier to tear open the tube and see the tape as it is sticking down.
The footprints can be photographed in the flour or you can keep the paper with the ink footprints.

There is a file attached with an identification guide for footprints which you can use to identify the small mammal you have surveyed.

Don’t forget to Tweet any photos of the survey tube set up and any hairs or footprints you find #NatureDays or post on the Nature Days facebook page or email them to me naturedays@reynoldston.com