Cold Case. Warning: Dead Stuff

[TLM]

As a young school boy I spent one summer hunting lemmings in Lapland, vicious creatures, bite through one's hand if given a chance. I have seen a lemming kill a weasel with a few bites, then he left screeching.

(I was kind of hunting them in the Biological Station in Kilpisjärvi, we skinned them, dried the skins and put the carcasses into formalin. I guess somebody made some science out of them. And yes the dead weasel was a real happening and they bite through the hand.)

 

[JonathanD]

I would have loved to have seen this go down. It’s also encouraging to know that weasels and stoats predate greys.

 

[Paul_B]

Squirrel doesn't surprise me. Even the little reds are very feisty. Had one come up a tree and along a branch overhanging the retaining wall so it was eye to eye with me and close enough to touch. I didn't because it was kind of stomping on the branch and telling me off. If that squirrel was human sized it would snap schwartzenneger in half in his prime! Talk about muscles on muscles with added steroids and roid rage to match. Fascinating!

My border terrier loves chasing greys. I think I'll stop that after seeing that. Just in case she gets close.

 

[TLM]

Talk about muscles on muscles with added steroids and roid rage to match.

By weight they must really high on the mammals list.

 

[Kadushu]

Well I'd rather see more weasels than greys. One more reason to thin out the tree rats.

 

[JonathanD]

I’m with you there. Every tree seems to have one in it now. They are out of control.

 

[Broch]

We know stoats climb trees to get to birds nests but I suspect Grey dreys are too high up

Besides, if a grey can kill a weasel on the ground it will have an even bigger advantage up in the branches,

Our only hope for reducing the grey population IMO is the targeted contraception that is being developed - just as long as it really is as targeted as they are saying. We don't have a good record for this kind of intervention so I'm worried there will be knock-on effects.

 

[Spirit fish]

Heading in the right direction.

bitten by a snake omg

 

[bearbait]

I've come across 2 grey squirrels, on separate occasions, in the last couple of weeks in the eastern end of the Brecon Beacons NP, actually way up on the mountains in the heather and a long way from any trees. Never seen that before. I don't know if they're colonising or just up there foraging for the whinberries. (Which seem few and far between at the moment.)

 

[JonathanD]

Give it time

 

[Lean'n'mean]

. It’s also encouraging to know that weasels and stoats predate greys.

Or try to.

 

[JonathanD]

Or try to.

Well yeah, that one didn’t fare well.

 

[CLEM]

Hmmmm wasn’t hunted

 

[TLM]

Pine martens do it most efficiently.

 

[JonathanD]

They do, and they need to start breeding and spreading far more quickly than they are at the moment. Although recent evidence suggests they are doing just that, and that’s down to Greys not fearing their scent as they inherently have no fear factor connected to them as they are not native to the Greys original country of origin.

The Goshawk also finds them easy pickings as they aren’t quite as agile as their natural prey of Reds.

 

[CLEM]

Weasel was unlucky

 

[JonathanD]

Weasel was unlucky

Wasn’t him. 12 bore took him in ‘18.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

, and that’s down to Greys not fearing their scent as they inherently have no fear factor connected to them as they are not native to the Greys original country of origin.

They have pine martens in the US or equivalent to. The greys in the UK have evolved without serious arboreal predation which is probaby why they are sassy blighters. It's unlikely they have any inherent knowlegde of their original predators over in the colonies after all this time.
I've used stone martin scat in the hope of detering rats but they couldn't have cared less & I doubt a grey squirrel will be bothered by the whiff of a pine martin until it's being chased by one.

 

[JonathanD]

Pine Martens in the USA (Martes americana) are slightly different from the marten we have in the U.K. (Martes martes) and produces a different scent that the greys don’t recognise as coming from a natural predator. Studies have shown that when a marten is in an area of reds, then those reds will leave the area for several days before tentatively returning. The greys show no such behaviour within the U.K., although they do in their native land with their own species of marten. Those same studies were successful in using scat of M.americana to disperse greys in areas just south of the Caledonian forest.

 

[21st century pict]

I was watching a stoat hunting birds and mice under a bird feeder when it spotted a young ( quite small ) red squirrel just off the ground about two feet off the ground up a birch tree , the stoat started stalking the squirrel, the squirrel spotted, or heard it moving and instantly turned and square off to the stoat, face to face the squirrel starts rapping its front feet on the tree, stoat backs off toot sweet...