Tracks in the snow where carnivores passed in the night
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Version 0 of 1. The previous night’s snowfall had been just right for tracking: about 4cm at dusk, then no more until after light. So I was out early and picked up the first tracks under the beech tree at the bottom of the garden, a stoat. It had been quartering the ground, hunting, but did not make a kill until it reached the large pond. There the tracks suddenly veered; a leap sideways and a few specks of blood on the snow revealed where it had taken its prey, probably a mouse or vole. The pine marten had slipped under the boundary fence but it did not seem to be hunting. Its tracks went straight down the length of the garden and then through the fence again and over the burn with one leap, as if it knew where it was going. Perhaps its den was the one in the nestbox designed for mandarin ducks I had erected along the spinney. The third carnivore of the night was a badger that had squeezed under the fence near the burn before it went up the steep slope under the beech trees. It must have been a sow – you could see where its underside, heavy with milk, had scraped the snow between its legs. The prints of its feet were, as always, impressive, with the long formidable claws that give Meles meles the Scots name “earth-digger”. Those strong feet and long claws would be needed when it was digging out earthworms or young rabbits – but not for the piles of peanuts I put out for them every evening at dusk under the fruit trees. Normally the badgers just pick up one or two peanuts at a time and eat them almost as if they were savouring them. This one, however, had been taking mouthfuls, as if she was in a hurry. Perhaps she had hungry cubs waiting back in the sett? However, she was not too busy to halt a while and scrape her claws on the bark of an apple tree. |