[BeggerJohn]

Feeling very guilty today. We visited our plot to collect veg for the coming festivities. Brought home some loverly sprouts carrots beats swede and leek also some magnificent  parsnips. Trimming everything there left quite a lot of greenery and I decided to lift the black plastic recycling bin and start again. The poor dormice that staggered out of the soil were obviously still hibernating. We managed to catch them all except the most lively which disappeared into the plot next door. We reset the compost with a decent layer of the composted soil and all of the greenery from today.I don't think any will survive and can't help wishing I had left well alone. Oh well such is life.

[WG.]

You never know John - they may just be able to get a nest together in the milder weather which is coming over the next few days.

Welcome to the forum, BTW.  Pop into the Welcome forum sometime soon & introduce yourself to the (very nosey) gang.

[Aunt Sally]

Welcome John  

Were they really dormice John, they are a protected species and you have to have a licence to handle them.  Did they have furry tails like this:

[babe]

aww bless its litle cottons

[Aunt Sally]

aww bless its litle cottons

No cotton there babe !  Pure fur  

[babe]

ok how'd i get in here, i dont grow anything :shock:

[gobs]

ok how'd i get in here, i dont grow anything :shock:

Fur.

[Selkie]

Aw that's the cutest wee beastie ever  -- much cuter than my baby seal.

[richyrich7]

Hi BeggerJohn and welcome  

[WG.]

Brilliant piccie Aunty!!

[Aunt Sally]

Brilliant piccie Aunty!!

Lovely aren't they.  

[SnooziSuzi]

Hi BeggarJohn,  Welcome to the forums  

Surely if you didn't know they were in there in the first place you can't take responsibility for disturbing them - protected or not it's not as if you turned their home out on purpose.

Don't beat yourself up about it - if they are/were in your compost then you can bet that there are more families around elsewhere and you may be lucky enough to see more again in the future.

I accidentally stuck a garden fork right through a harvest mouse in the summer when I was moving some horse manure.  I felt bad about it, but in the end if it wasn't where my fork was going to be it wouldn't have happened, would it!

[Aunt Sally]

It's quite probable that it's not a dormouse anyway suzi.  When BeggerJohn pops back he can have a look at the piccie  

[hermon]

ahh those little feet need raspberries blown on them!!  
oh and that little tummy!!

[Bodger]

I've spent 50 something years living in the countryside, hunting, shooting and fishing, you know all the normal things   and in all that time I've never seen a dormouse.
Its either been  because I'm blind or that they don't happen to have been in the areas of North Staffordshire and North Wale that I haunt.
If they were dormice that you saw, i'm extremely envious.