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.
Introducing Lumpy
by admin - 23:49 on 14 May 2011
Patience has been rewarded. I have my first snap in 2011 of a pine marten in the garden. ISO 3200, half-second exposure and noisy as hailstones on a tin roof, but I have it. There'll be better to come.
Baby Marten was spotted at 9.55pm – exactly one year and five minutes after the first marten sighting of 2010. I can sense a pattern emerging.
As you can see, he/she is just a wee toot, as the Scots would say. What appear to be lumps on our visitor's face were Matchgirl's immediate concern, but if they stay, and aren't life-threatening, they'll make future identification easy.
Lumpy (why not?) stayed just a couple of minutes before leaving in a hurry, so caution is already part of life. This was a pity, for as well as egg, peanut butter and Nutella, tonight's menu included the first (very small) rodent that Bess has captured in many months. The unfortunate beast appeared to have been gummed to death.
We might have live specimens to dispose of in the morning for, despite my prediction, Matchgirl has activated the humane traps, baited with Nutella filtched from the pine marten store cupboard.
Romeo also has rodents on his mind. He spent much of the day in our garden, crouched at the entrance to a mouse or vole burrow sited conveniently close to the spilled contents of the bird feeder in the apple tree.
His patience, I'm pleased to say, wasn't rewarded.
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