Western Daily Press (Saturday)

Country Notebook

RETURNING from a few days away over Christmas, my wife and I discovered an uninvited guest had moved in over the festive period – and was busy causing havoc in a small, but significan­t, way.

I first noticed it while in the sitting room – something darting under the sofa opposite, so quick I wondered whether my mind was playing tricks on me after the long drive back from London. Perhaps a shadow cast through the window...

Then my wife reported the same experience a couple of hours later in the dining room. The conclusion: a mouse in the house.

Only, how to catch it?

By the following day the visitor had lost all fear and emerged once again in the sitting room from under a woollen throw and proceeded to groom itself on the arm of the sofa before disappeari­ng again.

This was no mouse, but a vole. Voles are similar in appearance to mice, but are chubbier looking with a less pointy face, smaller eyes and ears and a shorter tail. A bit cuter, one might say. And this one, pale underneath with chestnut brown on the back, was a bank vole. A much less frequent household invader than the common house mouse.

Obviously the predicamen­t was not about species identifica­tion, but about how to catch it. Especially as it had gnawed a hole in the new National Trust woollen throw, and left a trail of destructio­n in the under-sink cupboard.

I got out a couple of humane traps from the garden shed and baited them with peanut butter, which is simply irresistib­le to rodents.

Within an hour I found it in broad daylight trying to chew its way through the wrong end of the clearsided plastic trap, oblivious to me watching close by.

While fairly rotund, it was obviously extremely hungry, and the sweet smell of peanut butter dispelled all fear of humans.

Eventually it found the trap entrance, only the door didn’t shut. I quickly grabbed the trap, but as I lifted it up the vole jumped out and scuttled away. Despite what one might imagine was a terrifying ordeal, it returned a few minutes later and re-entered the trap. Using a long stick I knocked the door shut and it was caught.

Incredibly, even as I ferried it to the end of the garden to release it, this crazy little critter continued eating the peanut butter inside the trap, obviously desperate for food after its confinemen­t in our house.

I’ll be barricadin­g the windows and doors in case this fearless peanut butter-addict returns!