Country diary: Going house to house looking for a dormouse | Alexandra Pearce-Broomhead

Bodmin, Cornwall: These red-listed mice are still sleeping off the last of winter. As we check for activity, we enter a world of velveteen moss rugs and squatting shrewsSpring’s threads are woven throughout the woodland: clutches of primroses, emerging bluebells and tightly wound fern fronds ready to unfurl. But at the bases of trees, hazel dormice will still be hibernating, curled up among damp mosses and leaves, soft bodies dozing the last of the cold weather away.I meet the licensed eco