On our Saturday walk I saw an ermine, which was a first for me.
Yeeeees, I know the quality sucks. I only had my mobile and the camera is rubbish. I’m getting a new one (because the screen is broken beyond reasonable. I’m also getting some heavy duty cover) and this time the camera was a criterion, so hopefully the next time I stumble across interesting wildlife it will be a better quality.
The meadow is part of the cemetery. I guess that’s the part where the anonymous graves are, in that case wave hello to my grandparents. If a small animal burrowing among his ashes cannot raise grandpa from the dead then Jesus stands no chance whatsoever.
How can you distinguish a weasel and a stoat?
Simple. A weasel is weasily recognised, because a stoat is stotally different.
(Sorry. I just had to pass these dreadful puns along. The real answer, of course, is that the stoat has a black tip to its tail. As the stoat/ermine shows in your video.)
Its camouflage is impressive!!
I have never seen one of these, Cute little bugger. Shame about the camouflage. Although in this particular case, luck about the camouflage.
Yeah, though the camouflage can’t have been that good here for decades. While I do remember snow, I don’t remember any time when we’d have ground snow for long. The one time I do remember was in 2010…
It’s a much better wild ermine video than the ones most of us have taken (it exists and you can see the stoat).
The only time I have seen a stoat was on a Boxing Day walk with a lot of the family one year climbing up towards Mam Tor in the snow, and it wasn’t in ermine, though it should have been.
Once while walking in some snowy woods I saw a rabbit flopping about in an astonishing fashion. When I came closer the ermine (which had been unnoticed against the snow) released its hold on the rabbit’s throat and made off in high dudgeon. Poor rabbit didn’t survive. At the time I had no idea an ermine could tackle prey so much larger than itself.
Great find. Thanks for sharing. You must have been excited.