It has been a quiet summer but now things are warming up in the trail camera box. After the female weasel moved her kits I was hopeful of seeing her again. She made two brief visits to the box in one day, followed by the stoat the next day, so I put a mouse in the top pipe as a lure. When the weasel came back she could obviously smell the mouse but to my frustration, and presumably hers, she couldn't find it and eventually gave up.
A couple of days later I put in another mouse, this time in one of the bottom pipes, and it was found straightaway, but by a different weasel, this one a male. Notice how he immediately checks the coast is clear and then looks for a second mouse before taking it away. He didn't go far because he was back 20 seconds later for another look round.
And he was back again four more times in the next 20 minutes, obviously convinced I had hidden another mouse somewhere.
The size difference between these two weasels isn't obvious at a glance because they are so active but here is a side by side view of the female (L) and male (R) searching the bottom left pipe.
With a male weasel and a stoat around in the garden I think either or both could have prompted the female weasel to move her kits to a different nest. I don't think they can be far away and they might yet appear on the camera.
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