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Sunday, December 27, 2009

The Mink in Winter


We've had some snow this year. Enough so no fool is walking around whistling I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas. A Christmas this white involves a lot of hard work, a lot of heavy lifting. Here's some shots of the garden in rest mode. In the second shot notice the birdhouse up on the 24' pole. It was intended for Purple Martins, but the Gray Squirrels laid claim to it, and chewed the holes open wider. Damned tree rats. We may have found a temporary answer to the squirrelhouse issue. The critter sitting atop the house in picture three is an American Mink, Neovison vison, sunning himself. I did not see him climb up there, but his exit was less than graceful. After hanging and flinching for quite a while, he dropped to the ground and scurried off down the hill to a burrow in the bank of the frozen lake. We have caught glimpses and evidence of mink (missing Koi) for the past 20 years, but this is the first time we've seen one in Winter.





7 comments:

Debb said...

It figures that the mink are only in the "ritzy" part of town. We on the other side of tracks have not seen minks, but have an abundance of "tree rats".. :)

Gunnar Berg said...

Well. Move. We NEED you and Laurie here.

Old Toad said...

Nice to see that the snow stopped falling long enough for you to take a few photos Gunnar.

As for those tree rats and mink, neither are good friends of old toads. Could of expected a mink to show off long enough for you to take his picture.

Hope you and your snow blower get some rest before the next big storm blows in ....

reverend dick said...

Will mink eat squirrels?

Gunnar Berg said...

Viciously carnivorous. They will eat anything that doesn't eat them. One of their staples is Muskrat.

Justine Valinotti said...

I agree with PETA's stance against fur coats--or, at least the cruelty against the animals used to make them. However, I wonder what they would make of a mink's viciousness.
;-)

Tom Sanders said...

In might make an exception to reservations about fur coats in the case of squirrels?