the mustelidae family

Part four the pine marten.

A while ago the pine marten was common throughout Britain,Now though it is uncommon.Trappings and persecution has led to the pine martens decline but its numbers are starting to increase again through better protection and sustainable habitat.Pine martens are nocturnal so they are mostly active at night in woodlands and cliffs,Sleeping through the day.Rich brown fur and a glorious brown bushy tail are two of its features along with the distinctive creamy-yellow throat and ears,It also has a pointed muzzle and large dark eyes.The male has an eighteen inch head and body with a nine inch tail,The female is slightly smaller than the male.The pine marten is bigger than a polecat.They make their dens in tree holes,old squirrel dreys and rocky crevices mainly in remote forests in Britain.Pine martens only breed once a year,Mating in July or august.But there is a delay in the implantation of the fertilized egg,The females do not become pregnant until about January,A litter of between one and four kits are born between march and April.Pine martens are excellent climbers,But mainly hunt on the ground,But they are agile enough to catch a squirrel amongst the trees branches and if the pine marten was to fall it can twist to land safely on all fours.Finding their prey by sight and sound.They eat a wide range of food,Depending on what is available from,rodents,birds,eggs,beetles,berries and a love for jam sandwiches.The kits are born blind,Opening their eyes when they are about six weeks old,For all of this time they spend it in the den with their mother,Once they are big enough to venture out of the den they stay together as a family for about six months.The kits grow quickly reaching adult size by their first summer.But remain paler than their mother until their winter moult comes through.Man is their biggest predator,But they don`t have many other enemies and can live up to ten years in the wild.

Resource partitioning

This is when animals and creatures come out at night.It makes perfect sense for them to do this, Bats,owls and badgers mostly come out in the evening to forage for their food. Firstly its cooler at night for them. Snails,slugs and earthworms will die in the heat of the day so they come out when it is cooler, The animals take advantage of this to enable them to eat at night.Through resource partitioning owls take advantage of day-time raptors who are asleep at night,Meaning the owls have all the shrews,bank and field voles,harvest mice,yellow neckedmice and woodmice to themselves.Of the 800 large moths 100 of them come out in the day.So butterflies are not avoiding competition but they are avoiding predation.Bats take advantage of the moths coming out at night who themselves may well have become nocturnal to avoid predation themselves.

things to look out for in march.

A common frog.

Its been a little bit colder this winter so everything is a couple of weeks later than normal.The equinox is here on the 21`st of march and that marks the first day of spring.As a pagan i celebrate the equinox as a really important festival because of all of the life that's now starting to manifest in so many different shapes and colours.Bluebells,ramsons,wood anemones and flowering hawthorn blossom are four things to look out for as we move into spring.There is something special about walking through a woodland when the bluebells are in flower.In my experiences trench wood by sale green is my favourite woodland for bluebells.Greater spotted woodpeckers are normally hidden from view,But you might be lucky like me and have one visit your feeders in your garden.If you don`t see one in your garden than head out to the woods with a dead stick,Find a hollow-sounding tree trunk and hammer the trunk in small bursts as fast as you can.With luck your hammering will encourage a territorial woodpecker to come and investigate your hammering,Giving you a lovely view of the bird.common Frog spawn should start to appear from now onwards as common frogs are the earliest amphibians to emerge from hibernation and will head straight towards their breeding grounds ,common Frog spawn is always in a ball whereas toad spawn is always in a line.Towards the end of spring tiny little tadpoles will start to emerge in lakes and ponds throughout Worcestershire.March is the best month to look out for brown hares as well,Brown hares may be seen courting in any month but because there is no lush vegetation for them to hide in march is a good month to spot them.Lowland pasture or ploughed fields are good places to look for them.Robins,Blackbirds,Blue and Great tits and song thrushes should be able to be heard now staking out their territories.Look out for where these birds are singing as it will normally be overlooking their territories.Also look out for our commonest newt,the smooth newt which resembles a smaller and slicker version of the greater crested newt.Toads and the other two species of newts,greater crested and the palm newt will all breed as well through march.Adders will start to emerge from hibernation as well as it starts to get warmer.
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Small tortoiseshell on a spear thistle.

Brimstone,comma,peacock and small tortoiseshells should be out being seduced by the beautiful spring sunshine.Primroses should be out in force by the end of march,They get their name from the words prima rose meaning the first rose but they are not actually a rose.Bumble bees such as bombus pratorum and bombus hortorum will be seen visiting long tubular flowers,the first can be identified by an orange band on its abdomen and the latter by a white band on its abdomen.Buzzards can be seen as they hunt over meadowland,They are getting ready to have their young later on in spring.Normally they would be looking for carrion but at the start of the year they can be seen hunting.

Walking through the seasons.

The book.

Just a quick update on my book,The publishing company the hot hive are currently reading my book to see if they like it.Hopefully they will like it and i can get one step closer to getting my book into the shops.I want people to be able to appreciate wildlife like i do,Hopefully my book will be able to do this by encouraging local families into going out on one of my walks and having lots of fun and quality time together.

The mustelidae family

Part three the polecat

Polecats are very similar to ferrets and because so many ferrets have escaped into the wild the blood line has become mixed.Polecats are bigger than stoats, The male`s head and body are about fifteen inches long with a five inch tail,The male is slightly larger than the female.The polecat has lovely creamy underfur that are protected by dark brown guard hairs which look paler during winter,A polecats face has white ear tips with a beautiful dark brown and white mask around their eyes, a pink nose and black eyes.They live mainly on farmland but may also be seen along river banks and marshes and are mainly active at dusk or night.They may come out in the day but only if they are struggling to find food at night and may be seen chasing their prey.Polecats are carnivores and mainly hunt rabbits,voles,mice,frogs and small birds.They will often inhabit abandoned rabbit burrows,They mate between march and the end of may,Courtship can be rough with the male dragging the female by the scruff of the neck.A single litter is born between may and June and will contain up to seven young.Polecats are very sociable animals,The young may be seen playing and mutual grooming with their mother in early august, they are two months old and when they first leave the burrow.The female brings up her young on her own without any help from the male.Polecats are normally solitary animals,They mark their territory by secreting a persistent,foul smelling scent from their pea sized scent glands on the underside,at the base of the tail,This may also be used defensively.Polecats may live for up to five years in the wild and have very few natural predators,But unfortunately quite a few are killed on our roads.

Pheno plasticity

Pheno plasticity is the term used for the way plants control the amount of light that gets to their roots,Stinging nettles are a brilliant example of this, they will grow different sized nettle leaves along their stem,Making sure the plant catches most of the light before it gets to the roots of the plant.

Poly morphism

This is when the same species will be different colours,This is how they make sure the species will always survive,An example of this is the banded snail. They change colour depending on their habitat.For example on a woodland floor on various leaf litter, The snails that don't blend in as well on the leaf litter,will be predated by song thrushes.This is why on the leaf litter the brown snails will survive and the yellow ones will be predated.

the mustelidae family

part two the stoat

The stoat is the second member of the weasel family .Stoats are slightly bigger than the weasel,They have a distinctive black tip on the end of their tail.Stoats develop embryos inside them, Depending on how much food there is available, They will reabsorb embryos to control the litter size which can be up to nine, They will do this to a point where they can provide for their young which are called kits. The more food there is available the more stoats there will be in the litter. Stoats feed mainly on mice and rabbits but will also eat insects and birds, And kill their prey by a single bite to the back of the neck.They will live in a den in a rock crevice or in a disused rabbit burrow but will also live on farmland and woodland.Their hunting ground can be up to fifty acres depending on the availability of food in their territory,Stoats will hunt by day or night.Stoats start to mate in early summer and right up to autumn, But the implantation of the embryo is delayed until the following march, The female gives birth in April or may.The female brings up the kits on her own and this is the only litter she will have during the year, The male will have nothing to do with the kits. Pairs of stoats may be seen together briefly in summer at breeding time, They both look a like but the male is about fifty per-cent bigger than the female,The male is about ten inches long with a three inch tail.They have reddish brown fur on their back with white underparts, Both have a wavy line between flank and belly fur,Small eyes and ears and a long slender body.Unlike weasels stoats live in Ireland but are slightly darker then our native stoats.The kits will first come above ground after about five weeks and maybe seen hunting and playing together, but their mother will move them from the nest if there is a threat from a predator such as a fox or a bird of prey.The kits become independent after about ten weeks. In northern Scotland the stoat still turns white in winter but always keeps the black tail.I will be talking more about this in another post called photo periodic pelage reaction.......sounds like a right mouthful i know but all will be explained.