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normally nocturnal. One female became a commuter
during the summer. She spent the day in a regular
nest site under the roots of a birch tree in a wood.
Each evening she walked a couple of hundred yards
across a field of oilseed rape to spend the night
active near the farm yard.
You might think that trying to tune into tiny mouse
radios within a few hundred yards of the powerful
Essex Radio transmitter would be impossible - I
rather expected the strains of the Timbo show to blot
out my mouse squeaks, In fact, this doesn't happen -
my mice broadcast on very high frequency (around
173 MHz) and the only time the transmissions were
blotted out was when a powered hang-glider flew
overhead with an unsuppressed engine causing terrible
interference.
I now have enough radios for eight mice (and of course
a transmitting licence for each of them) and am looking
forward to learning more about the secret life of
the Coptfold Hall mice over the next year or so.
David Corke
THE HUMMINGBIRD HAWKMOTH
On 23rd July this year we were very surprised to find
a Hummingbird Hawkmoth at the kitchen window of our
home in Ingrave, Brentwood. This is an unusual
species to find inland in Essex, as the moth rarely
breeds in this country. A small number migrate each
year from Southern Europe, and usually reach no further
than the south coast of Britain. The 'Guide to the
Butterflies and Larger Moths of Essex' describes the
moth as 'scarce and frequently rare .... and inland
records are few and far between'.