Apr 10th, 2014

Author: marionmccune

In which we meet Marten face to face

Another big night for wildlife here.

Firstly – we finally saw our friend the pine marten in the flesh for the first time. He seems to have been visiting the feeder much earlier – around 9pm rather than 2am, and last night I just glanced out of the window and there he was – this time munching away at the nuts I had put on the ground for the badger. Very luckily my mum was here and not only got her first view of a badger, but saw this as well.

He (or perhaps she) was smaller than he looks in the videos, and this, plus the different times he is turning up at, leads me to suspect that this may be a different marten to the one who eats from the feeder. Perhaps because he was on another (larger!) marten’s territory, he seemed very nervous and I was scared of frightening him if I went outside – but through the window we had a wonderful view of him eating his nuts for about 15 minutes. His fur is really beautiful with a lovely cream coloured ‘bib’ and he has an amazing fluffy tail.

Because it was through the window, the only photo I could get was not worth displaying, but it was magical to see him at last.

And then later that night we saw an owl (couldn’t tell what species) fly past the webcam. We are also seeing the deer in the garden most early mornings and evenings.