Jill Barklem, the creator of Brambly Hedge, has got together with the Wildlife Trusts to bring us this beautiful gallery of fictional and real wood mice, voles, shrews, harvest mice – and the natural world they live in
Jill Barklem and The Wildlife Trusts
Fri 16 Oct 2015 03.28 EDT First published on Fri 16 Oct 2015 03.28 EDT
Lord Woodmouse is the head of Brambly Hedge and lives with his wife Daisy and their daughter Primrose in the Old Oak Palace. He is a kind and knowledgeable mouse at the heart of the Brambly Hedge community and often plays a leading role in the many ceremonies that punctuate the year.
A wood mouse can live for up to 12 months and has many predators, including foxes, cats and birds of prey. To avoid its prey, the wood mouse can make spectacular leaps, has good night vision and can even shed the end of its tail if caught.
Old Vole is a field Vole and lives in a tussock of grass in the field. He is the oldest member of the community and officiates the most important ceremonies of the hedge such as Naming Days, weddings and funerals. His home is a little way away from the Brambly Hedge mice but he rather likes that as he enjoys his privacy.
There are three species of vole in Britain, the water vole, field vole and bank vole, all of which are vegetarians. They are food for many predators including, owls, foxes, stoats and weasels. They have three to six litters a year, of up to seven young each.
Brambly Hedge’s harvest mice are quite elderly and live in the Cornfield, in a little round house high up in the stalks of the corn. Their house is very cosy, with a thistledown carpet and neatly woven grass walls, which are covered with books and pictures.
The harvest mouse is Britain’s smallest rodent and lives mostly in long grass and wetlands. It is adaptable, intelligent and highly opportunistic, active mainly at dawn and dusk. It doesn’t hibernate like the dormouse but spends most of the winter underground. There are no harvest mice in Ireland.
When shrews Dusty, Poppy, Wilfred and Primrose go on a maritime adventure to collect some salt, they experience rough weather. Luckily, some friendly water shrews help them moor their boat and guide them up to the cliffs.
And here’s a picture of a real shrew, sniffling on a log. The common shrew is a small mammal with tiny eyes, a large nose and a keen sense of smell. Shrews hectically snuffle through undergrowth for their insect prey. They are very territorial and aggressive for their size and can sometimes be heard fighting, their high-pitched squeaks particularly noticeable during the summer.
Crabapple Cottage is the home of Mr and Mrs Apple. Mrs Apple is a wonderful cook and knows exactly how to turn the plants that grow around the hedge into delicious recipes.
The pinky-white flowers of the Crab Apple tree flower in May and ripen into small, green apples in late summer. Crabapples are very versatile and can be made into jellies and pickles to store for the winter or pies to eat straight away. Crab apples have long been associated with love and marriage.
o make her delicious hazelnut butter, Mrs Apple takes the skins off hazelnuts and grinds them up into a paste, which she combines with butter and a pinch of salt, and stores in the fridge to spread on hot toast.
And here are some real hazelnuts growing on a hazel tree! The hazel tree is famous for its long, yellow catkins that appear in spring. Its hazelnuts appear in late summer and are a favourite food of squirrels, dormice and Wood Mice.
A favourite food in Brambly Hedge, blackberries are used in lots of recipes including blackberry syrup: put a punnet of blackberries in a saucepan with a tablespoon of sugar, another of water and simmer gently for five minutes. Let it cool before passing through a sieve. Delicious with blackberry buns!
The blackberry, or bramble, is a fruiting shrub of the rose family, famous for its berries which are relished by people and animals alike. Its dense bushes provide valuable protection for nesting birds.
Primroses are abundant in the spring around the hedge. Not only do they provide shelter and a fun place to play hide and seek, but their petals can be picked to use in salads, and they can be crystallised and stored to use in cakes and puddings.
Real primroses are hardy little plants that can flower from as early as December until May. Since Victorian times, 19 April has been known as Primrose Day in honour of the late Prime Minster Benjamin Disraeli, whose favourite flower was the primrose.
Although ivy is poisonous and not to be eaten, it features heavily in many of the Brambly Hedge illustrations. It is commonly found growing all around the hedge and is also mixed with great sprays of holly to decorate the Old Oak Palace for the Midwinter celebrations.
The climbing stems and glossy leaves of Ivy are a familiar sight across the UK. The yellow-green flowers of Ivy are a great source of nectar for autumn insects. Ivy also provides roosting sites for bats and birds, and a home for hibernating insects like brimstone butterflies.
Lord and Lady Woodmouse live in Old Oak Palace, which looks like an ordinary oak from the outside, but inside the trunk it is hollowed out to form a beautiful mansion.
The English Oak is arguably Britain’s best known and loved tree. It can grow up to 40 metres tall and only starts to produce acorns when it is 40 years old. The oak is held in high regard in most European cultures. In England, the oak has for centuries been a national symbol of strength and survival.
The Hawthorn Tree is home to Lily and Flax Weaver, who spin yarn and wool, weaving it in to cloth for the mice to make in to clothes, blankets, towels and tablecloths.
The common hawthorn is a deciduous tree native in the UK and across Europe, which can support more than 300 insects. Its highly scented flowers are eaten by dormice and provide nectar and pollen for bees and other pollinating insects. The ‘haws’ are rich in antioxidants and are eaten by many migrating birds such as redwings, thrushes as well as small mammals.
The Brambly Hedge Complete Collection by Jill Barklem, is out now (HarperCollins Children’s Books) and you can order a copy from the Guardian bookshop.Cute animal lovers should also check out the Brambly Hedge website.Many thanks to the Wildlife Trusts for help with the nature facts in this gallery. The people who run the Wildlife Trusts are big fans of Brambly Hedge as you can imagine! They also have a lovely website for children which you can take a look at.
