That Ain't No Muskrat!

 I was laying on the couch last evening when I spotted something furry on the dock. I assumed that it was a muskrat because that's what I might typically see at this time of the day. It very quickly became apparent that 'that ain't no muskrat'.

The creature that I had spotted was long and somewhat slender.Not chubby enough to be a muskrat, and the tail was too bushy. I grabbed the binoculars for a better look. It was eating fresh water clams. I called for Wendy to come have a look.

"Wendy, come have a look!"

(I told you that's what I said). Wendy came through and took a look. I went and fetched my camera. I snapped a picture from the sun-room, then I went outside in an attempt to sneak up on the cagey, bloodthirsty beast. I wore sneakers in case I had to flee for my life!

By this point I had ascertained that it was either a weasel or a mink, though I was leaning toward mink because of its size.

 I crept silently toward the front of my property, using trees to shield my presence. The mink was ambling along the front of my shore, where the water meets some low-flying shrubbery. Ultimately, and much to my surprise, I was able to get within ten feet of the mink and it still didn't know I was there. I was, quite honestly, stealthier than the mink! The mink was laying among the branches of a shrub, shielded from view, somewhat, by the leaves of the shrub. I was able to watch the mink cleaning it's fur, and I felt like some sort of peeping Tom/voyeur/Edgar Degas. This went

on for a good five minutes. I actually got bored so I started making chipmunk noises and rattling some brushes to see if I could get the mink to move into open view.

I finally signaled to Wendy that I needed back-up so she left the sun room and joined me, a mere ten feet from Minky. I decided that I would work my way around the other side of Minky in an attempt to flush it out, back towards our dock. At first Minky tried to hide under the rocks, but eventually Minky made a run for it. Wendy got a spectacularly good view, no more than eight feet away in clear view.

Minky went under our concrete dock and tried to hide but I flushed Minky out again by kicking gravel in the water. Minky swam to the end of the dock. It was at this point that I heard Wendy say something that I wasn't quite prepared to hear.

"Oh oh, here comes Chippy," she said. Stupid, beautiful Chippy no doubt heard me rustling in the bushes and making chipmunk noises, the same noises that I make when I feed Chippy peanuts. 'Damn', I thought. 'What am I going to do now'? Minky would love Chippy just like I do, except Minky would not feed Chippy peanuts. Minky would feed Chippy...to himself! I made an aggressive move toward Chippy to scare him away. It seemed to work, though he may have been a bit cheesed off with me. Still, I'd rather have him angry with me than inside a mink's belly. I turned my attention back to Minky.

Minky clambered to the other side of the dock and tried to escape towards disGraceland but I headed him off at the pass, since Chippy was last seen heading in that direction. Minky backtracked and made his/her way back towards the original hiding spot in the bushes. It was at this point that Minky gave us the slip and we gave up.

We weren't 100% sure whether Minky was a mink or a weasel but we researched the two when we got back to the house. Weasels tend to be smaller and they don't swim, so this pretty much ensured that we had been dancing with a mink. Having a mink in the yard was quite a thrill though it makes me nervous for Chippy and also for the hooded merganser nesting in our oak tree. Minky would happily eat Chippy and/or the duck eggs or ducklings. It's a cruel world, but that's the way things have to be in....

.....Mutual Of Oromocto's Wild Kingdom.

I'm Ian Varty, see you next week.