After a nice afternoon walk with the Mrs today we stopped for a coffee in an entrance to a forest track, noticed a dead pheasant next to the car & after a little while look who comes along…

[url=https://flic.kr/p/zaqpaf]Druids Temple walk 007[/url] by jimmyg352, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/A8p55K]Druids Temple walk 008[/url] by jimmyg352, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/A8oqCv]Druids Temple walk 006[/url] by jimmyg352, on Flickr

The only other thing we’d seen was a buzzard so it was nice to see a close up of something else. He/she was only about 6ft from the car & didn’t seem to mind me snapping with the window down. A loud van came past & Stoaty did one! Nice to see though.

lovely creatures. We sometimes see one chasing bunnies across the Durham fellsides.

Saw one the other day, similarly close – out in the woods too. So it didn’t hang around long enough for me to get my camera out!

Saw one a few weeks back, it then saw the dark end of a shotgun barrel…

Fantastic animals – love the way they move, especially through long grass. Like

Great Stuff, Nice Pics BTW Camera must have been close to hand !

Ta Paul, had the camera in my pocket on the walk.

Saw one a few weeks back, it then saw the dark end of a shotgun barrel…

Then what?

A bright light

🙁

A bright light

Ahh, right. so you shone your torch on it! that’s good, I thought you were going to say you blew it away for a second! (which would of course been the actions of a complete retard, wouldn’t it.)

Beautiful, I haven’t seen them often enough. I don’t understand why you would shoot one, that’s a bit sad.

Ahh, weasels are weasily recognisable but stoats are stoataly different.

Had a weasel run across the road in front of me yesterday. Not see a stoat for a while now. Did see 3 otters last winter and sometimes see a polecat round and about.

Beautiful creature.

Here’s my song about stoats (to the tune of the farmer’s in his den:

A weasel or a stoat,
A weasel or a stoat,
If it’s got an ermine coat,
It’s got to be a stoat

i don’t understand why you would shoot one

Some people think, that because they own a shotgun, they’re allowed to shoot anything they like in the name of ‘pest control’.

You could try and suggest that some of the ‘pests’ that get shot, would have been very happy to kill and eat the other ‘pests’ that get shot – thus saving the shooter the bother.

Eg. If you shoot stoats, you’ll end up with loads of rabbits – which of course will ‘need’ shooting.

But that kind of discussion would be a waste of time, because people who shoot things mostly do so because they really like shooting things, and the example above sounds like a win-win situation to them.

Mustelids, are awesome creatures.

I don’t understand why you would shoot one

You can’t eat them, therefore they are using up valuable space.
Plus they eat meat so might murder someones daughter’s pet chickens or rabbit that they haven’t shut up properly, or eat the game birds bred for toffs to shoot.

Lovely photo BTW.