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Pine marten

Pine marten


Postby Tringa » Sat Jul 03, 2021 5:03 pm

Pine martens tend to be mainly nocturnal, at this time the year it often possible to see them during the day. This one visited the bird table this morning for bit of raspberry jam.

It is always a delight to see them.

PM_jam.jpg


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Re: Pine marten

Postby Sgurr » Sat Jul 03, 2021 9:50 pm

Location LONDON????? Where was this?
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Re: Pine marten

Postby onsen » Sun Jul 04, 2021 6:01 am

Lovely furry fella...wildlife sightings always make my heart skip a beat.
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Re: Pine marten

Postby Tringa » Sun Jul 04, 2021 8:00 am

London, now that would be fun :), this was NW Scotland.

Pine martens are elusive but have adapted well to human activity. They are more or less daily visitors to the garden so we see them frequently but in close to 20 years of visiting NW Scotland a few times each year we've seen two in the wild.

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Re: Pine marten

Postby Caberfeidh » Sun Jul 04, 2021 8:34 am

I used to get them in my garden when I lived in Drumnadrochit, near Loch Ness. Lovely wee beasties, so long as you don't keep poultry. Like a miniature bear.
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Re: Pine marten

Postby tweedledog » Sun Jul 04, 2021 11:01 am

Show up periodically in my Argyll garden. My neighbour who kept hens had occasion to regret their presence, as Caberfeidh suggests. But they are beautiful creatures.
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Re: Pine marten

Postby Luke88 » Mon Jul 05, 2021 12:34 am

My colleague at work, her mother has two that come into her house in FW, daily. They enjoy jam sandwiches, I get picture updates Monday to Friday.

Note, I don’t advocate feeding PM’s jam sandwiches, for what it’s worth. But they are curious creatures and very comfortable in her living room
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Re: Pine marten

Postby Tringa » Mon Jul 05, 2021 8:11 am

We used to put out jam sandwiches but thought it might not be too good for them. Now its the odd smear of jam(as on the bird table) and peanuts. Peanuts aren't all that natural either for pine martens but perhaps a bit better than jam sandwiches, and the badgers and the roe deer eat the peanuts too.

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Re: Pine marten

Postby tigerburnie » Mon Jul 05, 2021 1:49 pm

Jam isn't too bad for them, salt is more of a problem, I used to feed peanut butter but was advised to use jam instead.
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Re: Pine marten

Postby Sgurr » Fri Jul 09, 2021 4:35 pm

We rented a cottage that we were told had visiting pine martens and put out a crust one night. No takers. We didn't think we ought really to corrupt the pine martens, but then read the visitors book. The pine martens had been corrupted years ago, and what they liked best was strawberry jam from the village shop, and eggs. Some visitors had donated over a dozen eggs in a week. So we crumbled and got our photos, but now I can't find them as I can't remember what we climbed from there that time.
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Re: Pine marten

Postby SecondRow » Fri Jul 09, 2021 8:48 pm

I watched one eat every single berry off my gooseberry bush in broad daylight. I felt a strange mixture of angry and privileged. .
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Re: Pine marten

Postby Dunfie » Sun Jul 11, 2021 10:33 pm

I'm staying in Shieldaig this week and there was an glorious sunset out across the loch last night. I decided to end the evening with a glass of wine sitting on the front.

As I was admiring the view the chap who lives in the cottage next door pops his head out and asks "Do you want to see a Pine Marten? There is one in my back garden at the moment.". He told me to just quietly walk around to his back garden. I only saw it briefly before it jumped off of a wall and disappeared around a corner and out of sight but it certainly a unique experience for me.
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