DEER MICE

      Every March, years ago, when I cleaned out a few bluebird nesting boxes along hedgerows and woodland edges, I braced myself to be startled.  I reached into each box to pull out grass from last year's nests, and often, when I did, a deer mouse, or two, or three jumped out right toward me.  I knew they were fearful and only wanted to escape, but they always, always, made me jump back.  The mice were in those bird houses to escape predators, and the cold winds of winter.

     Adult deer mice are clean, cute, little creatures with brown fur on top, like a deer, and white below, with white feet and large, bulging black eyes that are so lovely and appealing.  Young deer mice are gray above and white underneath.  Young or older, they all are an adorable part of nature throughout much of North America.  And deer mice are closely related and very similar to the equally lovely white-footed mice.  They have the same habits and habitats as each other.

     Deer mice live in most every habitat in their native North America, including in woods, hedgerows, pastures and older suburbs.  But most people never see these interesting rodents in the wild; not even in suburban areas.

     Deer mice ingest seeds, nuts and berries, for the most part, the year around.  But many of those pretty mice are prey to various hawks and owls, foxes and coyotes, bobcats, mink, certain types of snakes and other kinds of predators.  No mouse is ever safe, day or night, all year round.  

     Deer mice replace losses in their populations by each female producing a few litters of young each year, totaling up to 30 young mice.  But most youngsters don't live long enough to reproduce.

     And these attractive rodents find shelters in the ground, among boulders and fallen logs, in hollows in fences and trees, and in bluebird nesting boxes, where they live and raise offspring in relative safety.  During warmer months, each mouse lives alone in its retreat, unless it's a mother with a litter.  But in winter, a few or several of these little critters pack into one shelter to share body heat.       

     But if ready-made shelters are in short supply, the determined little guys build their own.  Some deer mice move into abandoned cup-shaped, open birds' nests made of twigs and fine grass and placed in a tree or shrubbery.  Each mouse lays a roof of twigs on top of the bird nursery it commandeered and lines it with chewed grass or milkweed or thistle down to trap its body heat, and block rain, snow, wind and predators.  Each mouse also chews a side entrance into its twiggy home.

     If no shelter at all is available, deer mice use chewed grass and other fine, insulating materials to create a ball shelter that it curls up in comfortably, when at rest, through the winter.  Most mice place their sheltering ball in a bush or tree twigs.

     Deer mice are cute little critters that play a big role in nature.  They are interesting to experience, or at least know about.

         

       


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