Happily Ever After
Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running
Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.
Will The Real Master Marten Please Stand Up
by admin - 21:50 on 14 June 2010
The Rural Retreat's garden was a hive of activity today with two different pine martens making three visits between them – and those were just the ones we saw.
Another early-morning wake-up call, courtesy of Spider and Mr Pheasant (again shrieking from the garden gate), meant I was out of bed around 5.30. A quick status check revealed that the gate and The Nutella Tree had been stripped bare of treats; all that remained was the daily egg, presumably not noticed in its new location by an over-excited marten who'd found the two deceased birds. I replenished the treats and waited.
Spider's first portrait
Master Marten arrived at 6.30. He must have still been full of ex-sparrow and blue tit for he ate only half the peanut butter I'd put out before disappearing into the bushes.
Master Marten this morning, pretending to be shy
But, as has been established, Master Marten likes to finish what he starts. He returned unexpectedly at 10am, guzzled the rest of the peanut butter and bounded off into the long grass at the bottom of the garden, replete. So still no more snaps of him in The Nutella Tree.
Matchgirl and I had an even bigger surprise at 3pm when Master Marten came back to set about the Nutella I'd put out after a trip to Tesco. Seeing a marten at this time is unprecedented. Except this wasn't Master Marten – he was smaller and with a distinctively different bib.
The afternoon visitor...
...And yesterday's visitor. I now believe what I thought was blood on the bib is just natural colour
A look back through this year's snaps confirmed I'd seen him (or could it be her?) before, at the end of May, a couple of days before the very shy marten was snapped. So it seems we could have at least three martens in the area.
There was lots of sunshine at 3pm but in the wrong place – behind my snapee. However, that this is a different marten from this morning, is undeniable. The question now is: Who is the real Master Marten?
At the time of posting (9.45ish) we've had no evening visitor but I fully expect someone to turn up, unless every marten in the locality is totally stuffed. Time will tell.
Proof that there's more than pine martens in the garden
Add your comment
© Russell Turner 2008-2024