The secret life of the Harvest Mouse

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Clic

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Waiting patiently in meadows and reed beds close to their home in Alsace, France, the pair were able to capture some extremely cute moments

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From the studio - where the pair documented tiny newborns and their first few weeks of life - to the great outdoors where all of the 30 mice were eventually released, the pictures take viewers through a variety of events faced by the mice A female harvest mouse and her young (aged 5 days) in a nest

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Jean-Louis said: "All of the harvest mice came originally from captivity and were eventually released them into a field where we continued to photograph them, always carefully choosing a suitable habitat where we knew they could survive A harvest mouse female regurgitating to feed her cubs (aged 10 days old)

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"We also wanted to show the behaviour of the animals during maternity, but we wouldn't have been able to get this in the wild without disturbing the mother and there was a danger a wild mother might have abandoned them. Instead we shot the maternal behaviour in a studio before releasing the mice once the babies were mature enough for the wild. - To demonstrate how mice often take to the water in the wet meadows they inhabit, 55-year-old Jean-Louis and 46-year-old Marie-Luce gave one of their subjects a dip in a mouse-sized aquarium before releasing it into the wild

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A harvest mouse drinking the dew on a blade of grass

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Three young harvest mice link tails while sitting on a branch...

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..and another young mouse uses his tail to hang off theirs A female harvest mouse carrying a baby to a new nest

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A harvest mouse leaps through the air in autumn

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A harvest mouse peers out from a nest

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A harvest mouse balancing between two stalks of grass in Alsace, France, holds a grasshopper between its front paws A male harvest mouse on canary grass in front of a spider's web

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A harvest mouse female pushing a male on a branch

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A harvest mouse female and young on plant stems

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A harvest mouse is pictured among wheat and poppies

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Whiskers atwitch and beady eyes a-glitter, a family of tiny harvest mice play out their busy daily routine in a world hidden from human eyes. These unique and intimate pictures show them nattering on bramble stalks, tending to their young and keeping an eye out for predators. Pregnant pause: A mother-to-be takes a break from her busy routine

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Micromys minutus, to give it its Latin name, is a delicate creature with russet fur and a white underbelly, usually measuring between five and eight centimetres from its nose to the base of its tail, but weighing only five or six grammes. Much smaller than other mice found in this country, it also has a blunt nose and rather small, hairy ears. A prehensile tail, as long as its head and body put together, can curl round and grip onto vegetation and is used much like an extra foot, to help the harvest mouse scamper through our rolling fields. Indeed, harvest mice are very keen and quick climbers. They often hunt for food at dawn and dusk, feeding on seeds, berries and small insects and sometimes also nibbling the grain on cereal crops.

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Though they don't hibernate during the winter, they may spend time underground. In summer they weave spherical nests on the stalks of grasses and rushes or among hedgerows and brambles, sometimes as much as a metre above the ground. These might be tennis ball-sized (if they are not intended to be used for breeding) or (if they are to be used for bringing up a family) about 10cm in diameter. A harvest mouse might have as many as three litters in one year, giving birth to anything up to seven young in each one. Alas for the poor harvest mice, they also have many predators - weasels, foxes, hawks, cats, stoats and owls all represent a danger for these tiny creatures. As does the late-summer whir of the blades of the combine harvester from which, despite its acute hearing and quick reactions, the harvest mouse all too often finds that there is no escape

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Timorous beasties: A mother cleans her week-old babies in their nest