Discreet and nocturnal, this small rodent with large black eyes nests in the hollows of old trees and forages in the canopies of our deciduous forests and old orchards. Yet these habitats are disappearing throughout Luxembourg: old trees are being cut down, standard-tree orchards are being uprooted, and forests are becoming fragmented. Its disappearance would mean the loss of an entire ecosystem: woodpeckers, owls, bats, wildcats, and saproxylic insects.
To reverse this trend, the Hëllef fir d’Natur Foundation is restoring the diversity of our landscapes by planting and maintaining standard-tree orchards, restoring hedgerows, preserving old trees and biotope trees, protecting deadwood, creating aging islands, building woodpiles and brush piles, and reconnecting forest stands with deciduous tree species suited to forest edges. These measures benefit the gray dormouse (Glis glis), as well as dozens of other species that share its habitat.
Together, let’s restore our landscapes to their natural state and give the gray dormouse a chance to thrive. Images: Sometimes the gray dormouse hibernates in our birdhouses. As you can see in the photos, while checking and cleaning the birdhouses, we found two gray dormice fast asleep. The last one was so well hidden that we had removed it along with the rest of the nest. Of course, we let the dormice continue their hibernation in peace.
