Meeting mustelids in the garden

I had a couple of amazing encounters in the garden in the last few days.  Only 15m from my front door I saw a pair of beady eyes watching me from the base of a dead sycamore.  The stoat ducked back in but reappeared several times without leaving the safety of the hole.  I managed a few short videos on the phone but the quality wasn't great so I set up a trail camera to keep watch.

The stoat reappeared 80 minutes later and did so repeatedly over the next hour and a half before running off.  It was very alert, very fast, and seemed very aware of the camera.

In the end I had about 10 minutes of video but these two excerpts give you a flavour.

I was fascinated to see how much time the stoat spent standing up to see better what was going on.  I am reminded that stoats were sentries when the weasels took over Toad Hall in Wind in the Willows.  This is E. H. Shepard's illustration.

A few days earlier I met a weasel.  I was about to close the gate when I saw a face at the entrance of my trail camera box, only 3m away.  The weasel saw me and ducked back into the box, only to reappear at the other entrance closer to me.  It stood watching, wondering what to do and like the stoat it stood on its hind legs to get a better view of me.  Then back in and through the box, out and across the roof back towards me.  The whole episode was repeated and it went through the box five times in a minute and a half before deciding to go off along the hedge.  All the time I hadn't moved and the weasel showed no fear.  There was no camera outside the box but this was the view from inside.  You can also hear it running across the roof.

There hasn't been much weasel activity recently so I hope the stoat sticks around and I'll have more videos to share.