Author Topic: Stoat (Read 4402 times)

jaykay · « **on:** March 15, 2012, 07:32:09 am »

Opened my shutters to see some small brown thing running around on my flowerbed. Assumed it was a rat but when I looked properly, it was in fact a stoat. Not a very big one, but definitely a stoat.

It was digging really industriously in the flower bed. It dug for a bit, stuck its head into the hole then moved somewhere else and dug again. This went on for ages. I didn't see it catch anything big, and it didn't seem to be going for my tulip bulbs.

So what was it doing?

Very pretty incidentally but I'm a bit wary of it being so close, my chookyard is only the other side of the gate.

FiB · « **Reply #1 on:** March 15, 2012, 07:55:33 am »

Funny - I saw something long and thin in the garden yesterday, not sure exactly what it is, but suspect stoat. Finally I have met the fiend (it has burrows all through my raised beds and has killed all my asparagus planted last year. Cute but NOT welcome!

Rosemary · « **Reply #2 on:** March 15, 2012, 08:45:37 am »

Never seen any here but we had them at Longcarse. Our big cat, the late Cassius, used to kill them.

OhLaLa · « **Reply #3 on:** March 15, 2012, 11:11:03 am »

Quote from: jaykay on March 15, 2012, 07:32:09 am

Opened my shutters to see some small brown thing running around on my flowerbed. Assumed it was a rat but when I looked properly, it was in fact a stoat. Not a very big one, but definitely a stoat.

It was digging really industriously in the flower bed. It dug for a bit, stuck its head into the hole then moved somewhere else and dug again. This went on for ages. I didn't see it catch anything big, and it didn't seem to be going for my tulip bulbs.

So what was it doing?

Stoats will take eggs, and chicks. Yours would have been looking for something tasty (and meaty) in the soil.

We have them/it nesting somewhere in the stonework of one of our outbuildings, over 60 eggs disappeared last year from under the broody ducks until we found it dead outside the henhouse. Suspect it had a run in with something that won. Unfortunately, it looks like it left some family to take over.

This is a good bit of info on Stoats:

http://www.the-piedpiper.co.uk/th1p.htm

Sylvia · « **Reply #4 on:** March 16, 2012, 06:20:35 pm »

If small it may have been a weasel.

jaykay · « **Reply #5 on:** March 16, 2012, 06:46:13 pm »

No, bigger than a weasel, with a black end to its tail - a half-grown stoat I'd have said. I presumed it was looking for something to eat, but what?
Stoats have definitely killed next door's chooks and my friiendly wild cock pheasant in the past $:-\$