I rarely see a stoat or a weasel in the garden but I now have three trail cameras set up to look out for them, one on my "weasel wall", one in a camera box and a third watching the base of a dead sycamore and adjacent low wall. Since the start of the year stoat visits have been regular but fleeting, enough to show there is one around but not enough to suggest it lives here. It doesn't go into the camera box but appears on the other two cameras. Last week it briefly checked the base of the dead sycamore and then ran up the tree, disappearing from view - something I have seen several times before. This time, however, it came back down after only 15 seconds carrying prey, identifiable as a vole in slow motion. There is an old starling nest hole about 3m up the tree which is probably where the vole was, but why and how it got there, and how the stoat knew, is mystery to me.
Not to be outdone a weasel appeared on the same camera, checking on a delivery van before running towards the camera.
Most of the stoat recordings are on the wall. Here is one doing what stoats do, although quite why is another mystery.
Although weasel visits are less common, one also showed up on the wall last week, not quite as frantic as the stoat.
My hope is that one of these will decide that the wall is a good place to make a nest and raise young.
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