How do you film a tiny harvest mouse?
Chris Howard
Series Producer
The harvest mouse might be one of the most iconic autumn animals out there, not to mention one of the cutest, and we have wanted to do a film about them for some time. The problem is, at such a tiny size and moving through their busy lives at an extraordinary speed, it’s is pretty much impossible to film them in the wild.
So we decided that the only way to capture this unique behaviour and bring this gorgeous story to the screen was to film the whole process in the studio, and package it up as one of our 'wildlife dramas'.
A skilled climber
Look before you leap...
Working with some of the countries leading harvest mouse experts and a camera team who specialise in studio and macro filming, we set about planning the shoot.
The key to this kind of work is making an environment in which the animals will feel at home – if they don’t like what we give them, then they simply won’t behave in a natural way. Luckily, as soon as we introduced the mice to their new homes, they set about their business just like they would in the wild.
The nest-building behaviour is something we were desperate to get, and so when our star mouse started building we were thrilled. However, the fact that she builds from the inside is an evolutionary brainwave – but out also makes getting shots pretty tricky!
Once the nest was built it was a case of sitting tight and hoping for the best. Harvest mice make both resting nests and maternity nests, so we were really hoping this was the later, but we didn’t want to disturb her as she went through what we hoped was her pregnancy.
We finally took a peek a few weeks later when she was foraging, and low and behold, three beautiful, tiny young were in the nest.
Harvest mice babies asleep in the nest
After that it was a case of filming the extra sequences; the foraging, swimming and climbing sequences all came together really quickly with such an inquisitive species; adding a kestrel shot to give an element of danger (don’t worry, she never went near an actual kestrel!), and low and behold - we had a film.
We hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it!
A kestrel hovers... looking for a meal. Although not our mouse - she was safe in the studio!
