Wild Wednesday - Stoat
The stoat is a small predator, with a long, low-slung body that makes it well suited to hunting small mammals. Rabbits are a stoat’s favoured prey, even though they can be more than five times their size. Stoats readily pursue mice and voles into their underground burrows and will climb trees to raid birds’ nests.
Stoats are active by day and night, and are easiest to spot in open habitats - grassland, heathland and moorland, farmland, orchards, by the coast and in woodlands. The can be found throughout the country, although absent from some Scottish islands, the Isles of Scilly and most of the Channel Islands, and can be seen throughout the year and have an average lifespan of two to five years.
They mate in summer, but delay implantation of the fertilised egg until the spring of the following year. They have one litter of six to twelve "kits" a year.
The stoat has an orangey-brown back, a creamy white throat and belly. In the winter, stoats living in colder climates may turn almost completely white, with just a black tip to the tail. This is known as 'ermine' and the fur is extra dense to help them keep warm. Stoats in warmer parts of the UK may not change colour at all, or may take on a 'patchy' appearance. , It is larger than the similar weasel,
Read more: Stoat (Mustela erminea) - British Mammals - Woodland Trust
Photo accrediation: Robert E Fuller