Antonio the Field Mouse

Antonio the Field Mouse that became a Garden Mouse

FOREWORD I dedicate this not very extensive and hardly scientific essay on the life of one suburban field mouse to Charles Darwin and his son Francis, who became his father’s lab assistant and secretary and is usually ignored by historians.

Inspiration arose in me from reading their work on earthworms; ‘The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms, with Observations on their Habits’.

I strongly recommend everybody to read it, it is extremely interesting and useful, particularly to insomnia sufferers.

If that is not available this little essay should be of some help.

Martha Aitchison

INTRODUCTION There has always been field mice in our garden and in our neighbours’ too, only they are blissfully unaware of the tiny rodents. A blessing for the mice, which escape persecution.

I welcome them, for they feed on snails and slugs and so keep their population under control and my plants more or less unscarred.

In summer, when it is warm in the long evenings, it is great fun to sit in our balcony overlooking the garden and see a mouse or two scurrying about.

There are romantic encounters and territorial fights, if the current resident is a male it always is very fierce in the defence of the garden. The females also display great courage, especially when they have little ones to look after. They are solitary animals and will not tolerate another mouse close by except for those of the opposite sex at mating time. The present incumbent, Antonio, guards it jealously and it is amazing how aggressive he can be for such a tiny sweet furry thing.

This last spring I took a few photos over a period of four or five weeks, in part to do a Mail Art project for a friend and in part out of curiosity and this is the result. I enjoyed putting it all together, I hope you will enjoy as much reading it.

In his spare time Antonio likes to carve the shells of the snails he hunts making holes of strange and sophisticated shapes, inspired no doubt by the work of Barbara Hepworth.

I started this short diary on February 17, 2015, when I took off the protecting roof from Antonio's enclave, an anti-fox, anticat devise that has worked well so far.

I cleaned the floor to uncover the pieces of slate I had laid to have a flat surface for the food dishes.

All this was to be able to set a scene to photograph for Jack Lattermann’s Cascadia project about Walmarth and the Peeps Photo Project or PPP. I set the tiny figures with a little glue, not easy, the delivery man kept fainting. No doubt the box he was carrying was too heavy. Then I completed the photo with a good deal of digital magic.

I have been feeding this mouse all last summer and winter, a small price to pay for his excellent job as Pest Control Officer.

He is also a conceptual artist. That is why he got drafted for this project.

On the February 25 I was lucky to get several photos. Antonio was running around in broad daylight to my surprise and horror.

Fortunately no cats were in sight and I had the camera close at hand.

I thought field mice slept during the day and went out at night to feed. But as a friend put it, this one is not wild anymore.

After this excursion I found seven empty snail shells in Antonio’s place. I had noticed before the occasional empty shell round his living quarters Then I understood the reason for his foray under the bird bath. A lot of snails take refuge there during the day. Presumably the mouse learned to go there in daylight as by night the snails would be all over the garden, more difficult to find.

This was the photo I sent Jack for the PPP project. As you surely guessed it is a combination of one with the mouse and one with the Peeps.

Notice the Walmarth van at the back. A take on Walmart, the US supermarket that I used for Jack’s Cascadia project. The van is his creation.

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Last December I filled that container seen at the bottom of the picture with peanuts and left it for him while I went on holiday for a week.

When I came back all the peanuts were gone and he had dug a new hole, covering everything with the displaced soil.

I cleared enough earth from the courtyard to fill a small flowerpot but I left the empty container in place as it keeps the roof from collapsing in the middle.

This is Mrs Billiams, the great great and possibly even greater grandmother of Antonio.

She became Mrs Billiams after we realize that our mouse Billiam, long for Bill, was a female; that was when she appeared with three tiny little ones. The little ones soon grew up and went their way, to colonize other gardens or may be feed the foxes, who knows, they were very charitable mice.

She continued to come out in the mornings to feed on the scraps we dropped for her from our kitchen window for some time and then she too disappeared.

April 6 Years ago I saw one of the previous tenants of the den, a very tiny mouse, crossing the garden carrying in his mouth one of the chicken bones I had put out for the fox the night before.

It was a very funny sight, the thighbone twice the length of the mouse. So I have been giving Antonio the occasional bone to eat. After he peels the bits of flesh he keeps gnawing at it.

There are three large bones and a smaller one. Here they are used also to cover up the entrance to the presumed granary, together with empty nut shells and leaves. The entrance to the den is plugged with only leaves.

Today I left a cobnut in his dish and covered it with a piece of paper to see what Antonio would make of it. Perhaps that image was the wrong one, it might give him nightmares.

April 7 The smaller bone is now on top of the paper, which has not been moved or attacked in any way.

April 8 Now the paper,still intact, has been pulled into the den and the small bone is under it.

April 9 The paper has been dragged into the den. Is it used as a canopy or a floor mat?

I left some cobnuts in the green dish.

April 10 The husks of the nuts were partly in the green dish and the rest and cob shells by the entrance to the second hole, which confirms its use as granary.

April 12 The appearance of Antonio while I was shooting proved the paper is a mat.

He has been changing the furniture around, the bones dragged away from the corner.

April 15 The paper dragged further in the den. I left some peanuts.

April 18 A surprise. One of the bones was on the sort of shelf formed by the concrete slab covering the entrance to the den. How did it get there?

He must have lifted it, he is very strong for his size. That gap is tiny, it must have been difficult to get it just right in. Why all this effort?

The last photo shows the brick moved to see it better and then replaced as it was. I put in his dish some dog biscuits, a piece of cucumber and another of sweet red pepper after which he peeped out as I took the photo. Lucky shot but unfortunately out of focus.

April 19 The bone has fallen from the shelf, or was dragged down. The paper is almost completely inside the den.

The biscuits are gone and also the slice of red pepper. The cucumber was there but evidently bitten several times.

April 20 The paper and the bones are in the same position as yesterday. All the peanuts had disappeared but a tiny piece of the slice of cucumber was still there uneaten. Obviously not a favourite. I cleared some earth from the floor to put a dish with fromage frais and a cobnut.

It seems that Antonio is now more worried about plugging his den than the granary and he must use this last opening to go in and out.

April 21 The bones are all lined up pointing to the den but the smaller one that was under the paper is missing. I pulled the paper out and no bone there. The paper was not bitten or torn. I replaced the paper as it was. No bone either on the shelf over the entrance to the den. I took away the plastic container and put in its place a marble pedestal I found to hold the roof up instead.

All the food had been eaten, so I gave him three peanuts and three dog biscuits and the tops of two pears.

April 22 Antonio ate everything, didn’t open his granary and the bones at the entrance to the den are undisturbed, but he can come in and out anyway because he consumed the food. There must be another entrance, maybe way out in the garden.

Snail and nut shells have been moved slightly.

I left only a spoonful of fromage frais on his plate. A new leaf dropped into the area after I took this picture and I left it by the other leaf on the right.

April 23 The plate of fromage frais was licked clean. I think he prefers it to the yogurt.

Small things have been moved around and he has collected all the dry leaves that were in his yard plus some from outside and piled them up on top of the paper and the bones. The new leaf, the small green one, is where I left it.

I put the cores of two pears on his plate and left also a flower to see what he does with it.

April 24 The pears had been much appreciated, nothing was left.

What did he do with the stalk? Two of the larger bones have disappeared and the flower was untouched but at the entrance of the den some work was done pushing leaves and paper further in. Probably also the two bones that are missing are there and the rest of the pears.

I collected all the snail shells and put them on the right hand corner to see if he moves them. I left more leaves and two cobnuts on the plate.

April 25 Antonio has covered the bones with the new leaves and peeled the husks of the cobnuts but the shells are nowhere to be seen and he did not rearrange the snails.

I did not give him anything to eat today.

April 26 Added two fresh chicken bones.

April 27 The fresh bones are tucked away between the green dish and the back wall, near the den.

In the dish there are some flecks of chicken meat. Did Antonio take the meat to his dish on purpose? Appealing as the thought is, possibly he dragged the bones over the dish and ate them there and only after did he push them where they are now.

A new entrance, it may have been there for some time as the others were plugged up.

April 28 in the morning I decided to have a clean up and lifted the slates I had put down to have a flat surface for the dishes. In the middle by the back wall there was another hole.

I put a stone to lift the slab, so he could go in and out easily, and replaced it. I pulled softly from the paper, as I had done before, to see if it was torn or damaged but it would not come out, it was held inside the den by something fairly heavy!

I covered everything as it was and gave him two more chicken bones, some yogurt and a piece of red sweet pepper.

April 28 in the afternoon When I came back Antonio had been at the bones and the pepper but not the yogurt, still in the white dish. The leaves were undisturbed.

The third hole recently opened explains why the previous two entrances are plugged up.

April 29 The paper can still be seen and one of the bones is stuck at the entrance of the hole under the slab.

I left peanuts and biscuits for him.

April 30 The paper has completely disappeared into the den and a leaf is following it.

The bone under the slab is out again and all the food is gone except for the remains of the pepper.

POSTSCRIPT All this summer I hoped for a nice warm evening at the time Antonio goes out when there would be enough light to be able to photograph him but it was not to be. The weather was not cooperating as it had been other summers when almost every evening we would sit out with a drink and watch the wild life of the tiny garden going about its business.

Antonio also misbehaved and did not appear at the right moment, he either came out when it was too dark to shoot him or I was not prepared with camera at the ready. I saw him several times though, very lively in his glowing reddish coat with bright eyes and pink twitchy nose.

Once, when I had filled a big container with peanuts for him because we were about to leave on holiday, I saw him running around all over the garden carrying them one by one to hide. Why not to his granary? I guess it was full, I feed him too much.

After that episode I found out that a mouse needs only three peanuts to get all the energy it needs for a day. Antonio gets much more of course.

Since then I have reduced my donations; he is overfed with the food delivered to his front door so he easily could develop an obesity problem. Bad for him and besides the snails would thrive, being able to outrun him.

At another time I saw him having a fight with another mouse. I assumed it was a fight. They were running around and stalking each other, occasionally jumping quite high for such tiny creatures.

Now we are in the middle of Winter; the weather still mild but dull and raining frequently. I haven't seen Antonio for a while but he does eat everything I give him so all is well.

December 2015.

And that’s all, folks!

At least for the time being...

This is an Emanation written and designed by MailArtMartha In the spirit of scientific enquiry - or something like that -