MERLIN: 'Will stoats look different as a result of climate change?'
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WHEN driving up Strath A’an near Tomintoul on December 30 a stoat in white winter coat suddenly whisked across the road in front of my car like a scrap of paper blown by the wind.
I was delighted to see it as it was the first stoat that I had seen last year.
Judging by my lack of sightings of this mercurial animal during my travels over the years I have formed the impression they may be scarcer than they used to be.
However, numbers apparently vary greatly according to the availability of their food which is primarily small rodents and rabbits.
Seeing this stoat brought to mind an incident that a friend and I witnessed many years ago in Strath A’an during the summer involving a family of stoats.
We were sitting in my car in a layby having a cup of tea before heading out onto the hill when a family of stoats appeared near the car.
For the next 10 minutes we were treated to a fantastic display of acrobatics as the kits played king of the castle on top of and around a boulder only a few metres from the car.
They were tumbling and somersaulting over the boulder with each taking turns to occupy the top of the boulder before being knocked off by its siblings.
It was a mesmerising performance to watch and my friend and I were disappointed when the adult female called to the youngsters and they all melted away into nearby undergrowth.
Some people believe that a hunting stoat sometimes actually mesmerises potential prey such as a rabbit before launching an attack on it.
There are records of people witnessing a stoat tumbling and somersaulting near a rabbit and all the time working closer to it with the rabbit apparently oblivious to the danger until the stoat launched an attack on it.
Stoats sometimes hunt in packs in winter but I have only witnessed it once in my lifetime. It was during the severe winter of 1962/63 when snow lay for many months.
I happened to be walking through a big area of bracken on a hillside when a hen pheasant flew up out of the bracken and flopped down again only a few metres away.
She did this several times before flying away out of the area which seemed odd behaviour to me.
It was only then that I became aware of several stoats in white winter coats silently bounding through the bracken all around me.
Within minutes they were gone leaving a spooky feeling behind them because I had previously read stories in the Sunday Post about packs of stoats supposedly attacking postmen out on their rounds in the countryside.
On this occasion they were obviously hunting the pheasant and their appearance in numbers may have mesmerised the pheasant initially until I scared her off and deprived the stoats of a meal.
Stoats in white winter coats are common in Scotland and northern England but further south in England and Wales stoats with piebald winter coats are more regularly recorded.
It will be interesting to see if lack of snow in Scotland caused by climate change prevents stoats from developing pure white coats in future years.
