Resident mouse

Last week, just as it was getting dark one evening, one of our cats was staring intently through the conservatory window on to the patio. I slowly walked over to have a look, and saw the (not so little now) mouse sitting out there. It stared at me for a few seconds, then I moved and it scampered off towards the greenhouse.

We've seen the mouse before, it was very tiny the first time we saw it run across the patio. I think it lives under our wood store. After a bit of research on the internet, I believe it's a field mouse/wood mouse. It's slightly bigger than a house mouse. In fact, this caused me a bit of drama, because it was bigger than any mice I'd previously seen (presented to us by our cat, in our old house). So I was worried it was a rat for a while. (I'm not a fan of rats, I know they shouldn't really bother me and as we live in a rural area, then the odd rat is quite likely to visit the garden and the bird-feeder, but they still make me a bit panicky.) Anyway, it has a furry tail and is much more timid than the rat who has also visited the garden and attempted to eat the bird food. Apparently, rats do not have furry tails and mice do, according to the internet. Also, it is still smaller than the rat who likes to occasionally come and pick up any food the birds drop.

I quite like having a little mouse who lives under the wood store. It has never attempted to come near the house (although, I'm sure the cats would be very excited if it did), just seems to go from the wood store, around the patio a bit and occaionally to the hedge behind the greenhouse. I'll try to get a photo of it at some point. (I'd like the rat to stay away from the garden though, ideally.)