If like me you have a couple of dozen wood mice and voles in the freezer and have been wondering what to do with them, this may be the answer. Since the excitement of seeing ten stoats in the garden a few weeks ago the cameras have been picking up only one at a time, although not always the same individual. I noticed they have a particular liking for a space under a stack of large paving stones leaning against a sycamore at the end of the wall and were using it as a larder. On one occasion a stoat went off to fetch a chunk of something, either rabbit or squirrel, and took it into the larder. Three hours later it (or another stoat) returned and took the prize off elsewhere.
I had seen similar activity there as well so I put in a frozen vole and a couple of days later a stoat found it. It brought the vole out and then returned to see if there was another one. I think because stoats (and weasels) are used to raiding small mammal nests and bird nests they are always hopeful there will be more than one item of food. This time there wasn't so it took the vole back in and either ate it there or took it out the back door as it didn't reappear.
Expecting this might become a habit I put in a mouse but no stoat returned. Instead a magpie found the mouse and it certainly remembered and came back several times to see if I had left another one, which I hadn't.
Stoat sightings are intermittent at the moment but here's an example of what the cameras do see.
One of the cameras in the new wetland in Gosforth Nature Reserve is also seeing a stoat regularly although it is suspicious of the camera and doesn't hang around. It is only a mile away so it could be one of the recently dispersed youngsters from here.
No comments:
Post a Comment