The pine marten returns

After our excitement at spotting a pine marten feeding in our garden two days ago, we were delighted to see it has returned. Again it was seen in full daylight – this time at 10am after people were up and moving about in the house only 5 metres from where it was feeding. After our initial sighting I put out a selection of raspberry jam sandwiches and roast ham. Something (badger, fox or pine marten?) took all of the scraps I threw in my usual spot under the hedge, but the scraps that I put on a board on top of the 1.5m high wood store were not taken.

During yesterday’s visit, the pine marten remembered the squirrel peanut feeder and this time it sat on the nut box and helped itself to the peanuts in the box. I was happy to see it has learnt to open the lid on the nut box (I’ve read reports of some pine martens demolishing the nut boxes), but it did look a bit large perched on the wee shelf.

It fed on the nuts for at least five minutes (with all 7 adults who were in the house crowded around our kitchen window) and we Neil shot this wee video.