Scolded by a stoat protecting young
Scolded by a stoat protecting young
We rang a friend from the WNS last week for help with identifying some fungus and were rewarded by a delightful story of her recent encounter with one of our fiercest predators.
She was doing her bit on a working party in the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Reserve at Grass Wood at the time. Walking down one of the woodland rides she was startled by an extremely loud and extremely angry chattering noise. It seemed to be coming from a pile of logs left by the forester. Sure enough, as she paused to look, a small pointed face appeared in the gap between the logs – withdrew – appeared again in a different spot – disappeared -and again popped out of yet another opening, all the while cursing her ferociously. As it finally whisked away she could identify the animal as a stoat, with rich brown coat, creamy white chest and longish black-tipped tail.
Stoats are feisty little creatures and very inquisitive. If you glimpse one disappearing into a wall or bank it’s worth waiting as it will probably pop out again to get another look at you. The furious scolding was more than usual; perhaps there were young hidden among the logs. Hearing our friend’s story reminded us of a magical encounter with a stoat some years ago. It was a fine summer morning and we were walking along the edge of the moor. We paused to look over a gate into the rough pasture beyond and there, beside the dry-stone wall at the field-edge, was a stoat, its coat lustrous in the sunshine. It was quite alone and seemed to be engaged in some kind of sinuous dance, leaping and twirling, disappearing into the wall and reappearing in a further succession of acrobatic flourishes. It was quite oblivious to our presence and we watched it for several minutes before it made its exit into the wall. Watching it you could have sworn that it was just enjoying itself, revelling in the sunshine and its own graceful agility, but the behaviour of wild creatures is usually much more practical in motivation and it’s more likely that the “dance” is intended to attract and mesmerise prey; it certainly mesmerised us. Now is a good time to catch sight of our local creatures as families disperse and all are busy foraging, building up their resources for winter.
The hedgehogs which visited our garden earlier this summer did have young, and we were delighted to see two youngsters which visited regularly. They hadn’t yet developed the unsociable disposition characteristic of hedgehogs, and seemed to enjoy huddling close together to feed. Now the family has broken up and, with the earlier onset of darkness, we no longer see them, but we hope they are busily eating their way to a weight of 600 grams, about the minimum needed to survive hibernation.
