More stoats

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A single stoat in the garden
Well possibly just a single stoat, but while I was out in the garden picking peas and sweetcorn for dinner I spotted a fast moving stoat dive for cover. Rushing to get the camera, and I tracked it down to the pile of rubble, where it was keeping a lookout…

I suspect it is one from the family of stoats I saw in the garden previously. Those photos can be found here.

3 thoughts on “More stoats”

  1. Well, he’s a handsome lad, but he ain’t a stoat. He’s a weasel. Mustela nivalis. A stoat — Mustela erminea — has a bushy black tip on his tail. Hence ermine.

    I wish I had weasels in the garden. I’m moving to Sussex, so perhaps I will…

  2. A weasel is weasily recognised but a stoat is stoatally different! A stoat, or weasel, ran across the path ahead of me at Wisley the other day – a great treat.

  3. Not an expert as Mr or Ms Weasel clearly is but had a similar “meeting” today on a bike ride and my (albeit internet) research tells me the same as they’ve told you, that a stoat is Mustela erminea and has the black tip on it’s tail. Having said that the tail isn’t clearly visible in your pics although there is a dark looking bit at the end in the last one so maybe a stoat? For further clarification you might want to look at this next time you see it as there are some size variations too:

    http://www.wildlifebritain.com/stoatorweasel.php

    …they are quick little blighters too which makes them even harder to spot and am very impressed with your pics. Anyway fairly sure we met Mustela erminea today in Devon – cool!

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