The tubby little dormouse!

THE HAZEL (OR COMMON) DORMOUSE Muscardinus avellanarius is the only species in this tiny tubby rodent family native to the UK.


Adept at climbing...


... and often to be seen scrambling about hedgerows in the most impossible-looking positions...
(perhaps they get tips from Cosmopolitan magazine)


They love blackberries!



Going for a clamber in the shrubbery...


They are the tiniest tubby rodents we have, after harvest mice.
And doesn't this one so enjoy being captured and held!


They're most active in autumn, fattening themselves for the Big Sleep ahead...


The dor- comes from the French dormir ~ to sleep.
They build tiny nests and sleep the whole winter through...


They do sleep so deeply ~ more like a coma ~ these normally ultra-alert rodents becoming utterly insensible...
... and a canny photographer might show...


... how daffodils are obviously their first choice for a bed-down...!

WISHING Y'ALL A CHEERY WEEKEND!