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.
A Well Fed Marten
by admin - 22:44 on 26 May 2010
Animal lover Dolphin James has occasionally expressed concern about the poor diet that pine martens are offered in the garden of The Rural Retreat. Nutella, jam and peanut butter may be to their taste, but the fact is that it's all junk food.
So he would have approved tonight. Along with the usual sweet treats, our visitor enjoyed an ex-mouse left behind by Bess and was last seen bounding across the garden with an egg in his mouth.
This wasn't purloined from a nest. As Matchgirl takes careful notice of sell-by dates, several eggs that have lain unused in the fridge for a while have become surplus to requirements; martens are the beneficiaries.
Dusk was almost over when I noticed the goodies on top of the gate, untouched ten minutes earlier, had gone. I checked to see if the egg I'd left at the foot of the gate had been eaten too and discovered Master Marten manoeuvring his prize until he could get it, unbroken, in his jaws. After that he disappeared into the undergrowth. I don't know whether he ate it there in peace or continued back to his lair.
The light was far too dim for photography, so instead here's another youngster who I snapped this morning. I was ignorant about the species until the portrait appeared on Flickr. I'd guessed a juvenile dunnock; in fact it's a robin. You learn something new every day.
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