November in the Forest
Posted on behalf of Linda Iles
November in the Forest
The acorns and beech nuts have fallen, birds have eaten the rowan berries and the last blackberries have shrivelled on the bramble bushes. The colour is gradually draining out of the forest but the wild service trees still stand out in the forest like orange flames and holly berries glow among the spiky green leaves.
Male and female fallow deer have gone their separate ways after the rut and most mammals are now making themselves ready for the winter. Badgers will renew the bedding in their underground setts and moles will line their chambers with dry grass and moss, in plentiful times adding a store of worms, decapitated and tied in a knot! (See Fauna Britannica by Stefan Buczacki). Other creatures also make stores of food. Perhaps you may come across a cache of cherry stones belonging to a wood mouse or find acorns buried by a squirrel or jay. For some their food is available all winter and they have to stay active to get it.
One such is the weasel, which follows the paths and tunnels of mice, voles, shrews and to hunt them down. The weasel is the smallest of Britain’s mustelids: the family they share with stoats, polecats, martens and badgers. The Latin generic name – Mustela – comes from ‘mus’ (mouse) and ‘telum’ (javelin), ie a long, thin and fast mouse! An adult is 6 to 8.5 inches long, the males being larger than females. It is a law of physics that a large hot body will retain its heat longer than a small hot body and, being so small, weasels have to eat one third of their body weight every 24 hours to replenish their energy. In a year when their rodent prey have bred successfully they too will flourish. (A bank vole can have four or five litters a year and the young become sexually mature in four to five weeks. I don’t know how well they’ve done this year but I would have thought that anything trying to rear young whether in a nest above ground or a burrow below would have run the risk of being washed out). Weasel mothers have four or five kits in spring but when food is abundant they may have a second litter in July or August.
At this time of year young weasels will be leaving their parents to strike off on their own and you may be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of these quick little creatures crossing a road or path just ahead of you. Such an encounter would have been thought definitely unlucky in other times and in some other cultures. It’s a pity that these fierce but attractive little animals have such a bad reputation, from the ruthless criminals in ‘The Wind in the Willows’ to the term ‘weasely words’ meaning vague, equivocal or just downright misleading!
Linda Iles
