A pine marten looking for danger – and peanuts.
A few weeks ago I spent a very enjoyable evening in the hide at Aigas Field Centre, where BBC Springwatch is filmed, watching a pine marten happily munching peanuts – until a badger came along…
The pine marten approaches like an undercover sniper, racing from tree to tree, peeking out to check for safety before again dashing forward. When he finally reaches the fallen log in front of the hide, it doesn’t take him long to upturn a stone and find the quarry: peanuts.
A pine marten viewed from the hide at Aigas Field Centre.
Even when eating he is on the alert flattening his long body against the ground and curling his bushy tail around him. The last of the daylight is fading and only the robin and song thrush are singing.
Pine martens were once persecuted for attacking hens, but are now making a comeback in the Highlands.
Pine scented wind rushes through the plantation, disguising the approach of another marten, this time a female. She is much smaller than the male but nevertheless unwelcome to share the booty. He hisses, cat-like, and she retreats along the log to search for more peanuts.
Her movement is molten, her reddish brown fur shimmering as she glides up a vertical trunk and trots along a branch to find more nuts smeared with honey. Turning her neck to lick the last of the honey off the trunk you can see the neat white bib at the base of her throat.
A pine marten licks the bark to finish the last of the honey.
Night is falling and the tawny owls are calling now. The female makes her contact call ‘ke-wick’ and the male replies ‘hoo, hoo, hoo’. In the intervals there is silence, except for the chomping of the pine martens. They may have sharp teeth, but they have short jaws in their triangular little faces and the peanuts are proving heavy work.
Pine martens have strong teeth but short jaws to munch peanuts.
Then suddenly they disappear, moving so fast it is difficult to detect anything but a flash of tail disappearing into the canopy. For a moment it is unclear what the upset is and then the badger rolls into sight. He is like a tank, a real bruiser, tossing over stones with a flip of his nose or a paw and noisily hoover-ing up the last of the peanuts. He snuffles and snorts moving surprisingly fast for a creature his size as he methodically covers the ground for any last morsel before trundling back into the trees.
The pine martens soon disappeared when the badger came along.
The light has completely faded now, but down on the loch, the beavers are just about to come out of their lodge.
