Sophie:The University of Warwick is home to lots of beautiful creatures. In the springtime, our furry friends awaken from their winter slumber and are on a mission to produce the next generation. Welcome to Spring at Warwick. Today we're going to meet some of our marvellous mammals that live on campus.

Tanya:So today we've been doing a small mammal survey to try and find out what small mammals we might have in the area. So small mammals would include shrews, voles, and mice. Today we actually found Wood mice, which is the most common mouse that you're probably gonna find in the area that we looked. So they just start breeding at this time of year - she does look a little bit chubby. We haven't got any way to weigh her, but it might be that she's started to have breeding season, so she might be pregnant. But as you can see, they're quite inquisitive. Huge ears - that's the good identifying feature of a mouse compared to a vole. And they've got massive eyes. They're active day and night trying to find food. They'll be eating things like the flowers, buds on trees, that sort of thing to get nutrition.

So, we have lots of other mammals that might be living on campus. I think probably the most common ones you're likely to see are squirrels, rabbits, and foxes. So the rabbits are really common to see on campus. They can be active in the daytime, but you're more likely to see them probably around dusk. They're active all year, but perhaps don't come out to eat and be visible until kind of springtime, which is when they're breeding. So they'll obviously need more energy for breeding.

The foxes will also be breeding around this time of year, and the young are usually born in about April time. They come out of their earth or den around June time and start to find things to eat with their mother and father. And then they'll stay with their parents for quite a long time before they start making their way into their own territories.

So badgers are on campus, but you won't be seeing them very much because they're quite secretive animals. Badges at this time of year will be looking after their young. They mate around this time of year, but they have what's called delayed implantation, so they don't actually have their young until about February. So the delay implantation throughout the winter,and then the young will be born within the set, and they'll stay within the set until about now, about April. And in April, you start to see the badger cubs coming out very gradually and making forays into the wildlife and then going back into the set again.