MAMMALS
Wild Stroud is home to some incredible species in the South Downs National Park.
Roe Doe
Roe Buck
ROE DEER
Secretive and nocturnal and unless you sit out at night, they are usually seen dead along the A272 Winchester Road. I know of one main breeding sett and we see small outlier setts around the parish. They feed mainly on earthworms out in the grass fields and can come through gardens searching for additional food. Look for their paths passing through hedgerows and their five toed prints in soft ground. Sow (left and boar (right) badger.
MUNTJAC DEER
These very small knee-high deer have been reported from just over our parish boundary into Steep, but I have never seen one in our parish. They are native to China and Taiwan and introduced to the UK in the early 20th Century and have spread widely.
Note: The photo of this specimen was taken in Norfolk.
BADGERS
Secretive and nocturnal and unless you sit out at night, they are usually seen dead along the A272 Winchester Road. I know of one main breeding sett and we see small outlier setts around the parish. They feed mainly on earthworms out in the grass fields and can come through gardens searching for additional food. Look for their paths passing through hedgerows and their five toed prints in soft ground. Sow (left and boar (right) badger.
FOX
We see foxes from time to time and hear their loud piercing triple calls during the winter mating period.
EUROPEAN HEDGEHOG
We find hedgehogs in our garden from time to time but not often. I have had reports of them being seen along Ramsdean Road. They tend to be reported mainly from urban areas and recent studies have shown that they have declined drastically nationwide (especially in rural areas) since about the year 2000. Any hedgehog we see in the parish is an indication that they are still with us here in Stroud.
STOAT AND WEASEL
So secretive that they are seldom seen but are likely to occur regularly in Stroud. We have caught both species on wildlife cameras in our garden, but they are so quick and easily missed. We watched a stoat attempting, but failing, to catch a rabbit, near the site of the old village hall a few years ago.
POLECAT FERRET
We have seen a ferret and a polecat ferret on our wildlife cameras at the end of the garden and which will have been escaped or feral domestic animals
BROWN HARE
Not uncommon in the parish but easy to miss. They can be seen while walking the parish paths and our closest view was on the footpath passing through a wheatfield between New Buildings Farm and Petersfield. We once found a road casualty on the Winchester Road. Identified by their larger size and longer ears than rabbits and being found in open countryside, whereas rabbits like the nearby shelter of hedges and woodland edges where they have their warrens.
RABBIT
Rabbits are common in the parish. Look over the stile by the bus stop opposite Finchmead Lane onto the village green and unless somebody has just walked by, they can usually be seen feeding in small groups.
BATS
Bats can be seen flying fast over fields and along hedgerows at dusk and can be located using bat detectors but even so, they are difficult to identify to species. The tiny pipistrelle bats are probably the commonest with both the common pipistrelle and soprano pipistrelle. Other bats that probably occur include brown long-eared and noctule bats and probably others.
Bank vole
VOLES
Greyish Field Voles occur in our open grass fields and provide food for kestrels and buzzards. Bank Voles are reddish and prefer hedgerows and woodland edges and we find them all year long under our wildlife tins laid out in the garden.
HAZEL DORMOUSE
We found a sleeping hazel dormouse in the hedge at the end of our garden a few years back and it is likely that they use our taller tree-lined hedgerows and the trees in Furzefield Copse. They are nocturnal and spend most of their time high in trees travelling from tree to tree and many of our tall hedgerows are suited to them. However, hedgerows that are severely cut back seriously impede the ability of dormice to travel across our parish and so their distribution in Stroud will be restricted. Dormice are one of our rarest mammals and heavily protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. We are so lucky to have them in the parish.
WOOD MOUSE
We have several species of mice. Wood mice are the are the commonest and live in banks and hedgerows as well as woodlands.
YELLOW NECKED MOUSE
Yellow necked mice are mainly a woodland species, but we have had them in the house. Yellow necked mice are like very large wood mice but with a yellow band across their chests and very active.
COMMON SHREW
PYGMY SHREW
HOUSE MICE
House mice invade the house from time to time and are smaller and greyer than the other mice species.
SHREWS
Shrews come in two species, the common shrew and pygmy shrew. They are not easy to tell apart as their sizes overlap, but experts look at the relative length of their tails to their bodies, pygmy shrews have the longer tail abut two-thirds of their body length while the common shrew tail is only half the length of their body.