Two days ago we noticed something with very sharp teeth had chewed the top and lid of our squirrel peanut feeder. We speculated that we either had a new (less clever) pine marten visiting or ‘our’ one had amnesia and had forgotten how to lift the lid for the box. The box had two large chunks bitten off and the lid was completely ripped off; the rubber hinge (bike inner tube) was torn off the screws that held it in place.
This evening we saw the culprit. This pine marten has a distinguishing white mark on the left of its nose (you can see it in the short video below), which was not present on the pine marten we saw previously.
It started by going for the ‘bite chunks off the lid’ technique, but that didn’t work, so it attacked the back instead. No, that wasn’t working so it jumped around going for a different position for attack. The chrome washers are where we repaired the hinge that was ripped off two days earlier. Just before the pine marten arrived Neil had covered these washers with black tape so it would look better in photos. This tape lasted all of one hour! 
Fantastic record Sheila, you “own” these martens now! So glad I didn’t scare them off.
Regards,
Freddie.
Great to see such as rare animal.
He`s probably fed up withthe usual jam sandwich fare
Got a freind that was studying wolverines in northern Sweden for a while.You can see the pine martin is a slim line Scottish version of that.Great you have several in your area.Beats my blue tits,magpies and sparrows.
Did have a sparrow hawk visit the garden once.Lost two sparrows and a robin in three days.
Yes, it’s definitely wolverine in appearance. A couple of people have mentioned its similarity to fox, but no, wolverine is much closer.
What a stunning little fella he is. So lucky to him visit you, even if he is wrecking the joint
. The only furry friend I’ve seen in my garden in Herefordshire is a rat!