Olympic sprinter mouse!

According to Alexa mice can run up to 7.9 miles per hour.??
A squirrel ran through our garden yesterday. It was a speedy little beast. I've never seen one around here before, so I be no idea where it was going.

We have very tiny, jumping or hopping mice (Notomys) here.

The first time I caught and released one, I thought I'd injured it...I have a humane trap not a despicable spring one...because it wasn't walking properly. Some people call them Kangaroo Mice.

Because my house was built on their home land, they like to come share with me.

Thanks MiniMoon, I wish I could run 7,9 miles an hour!

Aw, that's lovely BradfordLass. Kangaroo Mice.

I love wildlife. Walking through trees at Manly,NSW, I heard a rustle and movement in the undergrowth so got a stick and had a poke around. It was an echidna and I would have jumped for joy only for scaring the poor thing. I was delighted.

They can also squeeze in through the tiniest of cracks.
I was once sitting on the toilet and saw a mouse emerge from the crack between the skirting board and the floor.
That was in rural France - we shared the house with them.

One of my cats occasionally 'loses' a mouse he will insist on bringing in and I usually manage to rescue it - sometimes with the spider catcher gadget. One morning an escapee managed to get upstairs, under my bedroom door and before we could catch it it squeezed behind the chest of drawers. Panic ensued as we were desperate for it not to go behind the wardrobes! I have patio doors in the bedroom with a balcony outside (totally useless as it's on the front of the house and just not the place you would sit even if you could get a chair out there besides which I'm scared of heights!). We opened the doors, got a broom and poked it down the back of the chest - the mouse ran out straight through the window and shot off the edge of the balcony proving not only can they run fast they can also fly too It lived to run another day!!

If I'm lucky I can catch the mice/voles/shrews the cats bring in at the point where the cat drops them and they pause confused before running under the furniture. I've got quite slick at popping a box over the top of them and sliding a piece of card underneath before picking it up. Trouble is, I often catch a tail or leg under the edge of the box and then worry that I've done more damage than the cat!