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Anyone ever seen a polecat?

Mike G

Mike G

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I saw one this morning. It was in an open field on the edge of a wood, just lying, and when it saw me (or the dog), it just trotted off into the wood. It was way, way bigger than a stoat or weasel. Other candidates (mink and otter) can be ruled out because there is no water near by. I was maybe 40 metres away, and watched it for 15 or 20 seconds.

I had wondered if there was a polecat in the area for a while now, because we haven't seen any rats for a couple of years. Living surrounded by wheat fields and with ponds dotted around, rats are usually fairly common.

Add that to the hen harrier I saw before christmas and this has been a good winter for spotting unusual wildlife.
 
An otter couldn’t be mistaken for a polecat nor a mink.
Chubbier and low undercarriage.
Mink and polecat are more difficult to distinguish between.
Also escaped ferret in the mix.
 
There are supposed to be some in the woods/fields behind our house although I have never seen any. I’m told by the guys who manage the woodlands that the easiest way to recognise them is that they have a whitish stripe across their face.
 
Blackswanwood said:
......I’m told by the guys who manage the woodlands that the easiest way to recognise them is that they have a whitish stripe across their face.
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Indeed. I didn't get to see the face. It was just the size and colour that gave me my options. I walked around the rest of my walk muttering "what the hell have I just seen?"
 
About this time last year I managed to take some very poor video, on my phone, of a stoat in it’s winter pure white coat. Those one off unexpected encounters are so rewarding.
I imagine there will be a wildlife survey that would be pleased to hear about your sighting.
 
AndyP said:
About this time last year I managed to take some very poor video, on my phone, of a stoat in it’s winter pure white coat. Those one off unexpected encounters are so rewarding.
I imagine there will be a wildlife survey that would be pleased to hear about your sighting.
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I've alerted the wood owner, who is a professional ecologist. He'll know exactly how to record this, and with whom.
 
Never seen a Polecat but would like to. Last time I saw a Stoat was in the uk 2 years ago, lovely looking unless you’re a rabbit of course, lots of Weasels as well, usually running across country roads, always think how strange they look and that they must have had quite an evolution to get like that.
 
Translation of the various names polecat, stoat, weasel etc into french is a bit vague, but the critter that killed several of my neighbour's chickens before we trapped it was identified as a Fouine here. We also get Martres, which are translated by Google as Pine Martens.
 
chataigner said:
Translation of the various names polecat, stoat, weasel etc into french is a bit vague, but the critter that killed several of my neighbour's chickens before we trapped it was identified as a Fouine here. We also get Martres, which are translated by Google as Pine Martens.
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Been there when I took some photos of one in the garden. If one looks at the scientific name you’ve got Martes foina (fouine) and Martes martes (martre) . Common usage I suspect may also vary across the country.

Take a camera next time Mike you might get lucky.
 
AndyP said:
Been there when I took some photos of one in the garden. If one looks at the scientific name you’ve got Martes foina (fouine) and Martes martes (martre) . Common usage I suspect may also vary across the country.

Take a camera next time Mike you might get lucky.
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I walk the dog twice a day, Andy. I've done that around here for 10 years. That's 5000+ walks......and one polecat! If I carry a camera on the off-chance, I'll get lots of deer photos, the odd fox and badger, and probably the same number of polecats as I've seen in the rest of my life before today.

It will have to go down as one of the photos I didn't get. Along with a camel being butchered on the beach in Mauritania, the northernmost sighting of an African Black-footed Cat in Zambia, the hyaena that wandered into our camp in the Okavango, and the buffalo the other side of a bush I was peeing into in Botswana. Oh, and the elephant browsing on the tree we were camping underneath, on the Kafue river.
 
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Lurker said:
I had a kingfisher perch on my fishing rod last week. I dared not move to get my phone out of my pocket. I see them regularly flying by, but never had such a close encounter.
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Superb!
 
Lurker said:
I had a kingfisher perch on my fishing rod last week. I dared not move to get my phone out of my pocket. I see them regularly flying by, but never had such a close encounter.
Click to expand...
We see them a lot as they take tiddlers out of our "canal" One came into the kitchen last year and I took some pictures. Will see if I can find them. They tend to perch, fish and return to the same perch repeatedly.
 
We've had a few pole cats as pets, came from working stock so very friendly. We had a jill neutered because they can die if not mated. My jack russel is 14 now and his best pal was daisy the polecat when he was a puppy.
 
Yes, caught one on a trail camera, in our garden, early last year. We've lived here >20 years, and never seen one in the flesh. Several locals, proper country folk, and even the postman have told us they're seen them.
 
There's a road in Haslemere, Surrey, that comes down off the A287 from Hindhead into Lion Green. It's apparently been renamed by Google (or SCC), as 'Polecat Lane', but when I was a child it was just known as 'Polecat' (and the road sign said as much).

I remember my grandparents talking about seeing one, but that must have been in the 1960s. It's funny what you remember from childhood...
 
Not here, Sam, I don't think. I wish it was, or we might see fewer grey squirrels. I think a pine marten is maybe smaller and blacker than what I saw.
 
We were on the deck having a beer or twelve one evening at my sister's bach (holiday place) on the Coromandel, NZ. I heard an owl call - so I cupped my hands and made an owl call. A minute or two later it called again. My nephew was about six and he asked if I could really talk to moreporks (small NZ owls)- I said I could talk to Cornish owls, I wasn't sure but I'd try. I called again, and it flew down and perched on the end of the handrail for a few minutes. They were enthralled, moreporks are pretty much nocturnal and secretive and none of them had seen one close up. He thought for years I could speak owl.

en.wikipedia.org

Morepork - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
It's a mopoke in Australia. Their magic power is to be able to stand perfectly still for a long time and look like a dead tree branch.
 
I spoke with the woodland owner yesterday, who confirmed that there is a pair of polecats in the wood. They've been there for 2 years, and raised a litter in a log pile last summer. He was more interested in my sighting of a hen harrier, as he's not recorded one of those previously.
 
Everyone I know keeps their hens in at night, so no. There's no way they'd be in people's gardens in the daytime as they're nocturnal/ crepuscular.
 
Mates had polecats when I was a kid.I see them frequently here, also fouines, martes, mink, squirrels, rats, coypu , sometimes alive, sometimes flat on the road that runs along the top of the cliffs here. Loads of raptors around. We have a honey buzzard comes to the garden regularly and sits on a washing line post about 4 metres from the living room windows, spectacular bird .Wood peckers too, many owls hunting around the large garden of our neighbours to the rear of ours. We hear them most clear nights.The neighbours ( who only use the place at occasional week-ends ) have never heard them, they go to bed too early when they are here. Crows, rooks, ravens, magpies, lots of small garden birds.At the moment we have a regular daily visit from a flock of about a dozen or so long tailed t*ts. We put out a lot of seed and fat balls.Our old TV antenna is a nightingale territory boundary point, the song is beautiful during the late spring and summer..

Gulls..swaggery things..perch all around.
 
Nice to hear that you provide feed for the birds, we also feed regularly. One of the highlights this time of year is the return of Snow Buntings, usually a flock of around a couple hundred. Their breading ground is the Arctic.
 
My neighbour on the other side of our road was telling me one day how he thought the bird population was decreasing, he saw very few. I asked if he put food out for them in winter. "Oh no" came the reply , " too much trouble !"
( he's a retired veterinary inspector, specialty was poultry, his father was a poultry farmer for about 20 years )
Last year I had very a young blue tit jump onto my finger to feed, it could barely fly. The parents had brought it near to one of our hanging fat ball feeders to feed it, they flew off when I passed by. It couldn't fly away, it sat there doing the "gimmee food" chirping and tiny , not yet fully feathered wings flapping as they do to get the parents attention. I wondered if it might have so little fear , being so young. So I scooped some seed up from a seed feeder and put my hand out. On it hopped ( parents were getting frantic a few metres away ). It couldn't yet "peck" at seed, wanted me to feed it, too tricky, I might have hurt it trying , so I moved my hand back to the plant it had been on, and off it hopped again. I moved away and the parents came back, much chirping from all of them. They flew a short distance ( it couldn't do more than short flights ) to one of our Camelia bushes and stayed there. Parents came back to the fat ball holder and began the "food shuttle" again. It was so light I could hardly feel it on my finger, just the tiny feet holding on.

We have a robin ( actually we have about four of them who come which is unusual as they are very territorial* ) who comes and taps on the window. It cannot perch on the fat ball holders easily , robins feet are not made to hold onto really thin wire.So he taps to tell me to come outside and put broken fat balls on the ground with some seed. He too will fly up and perch on my finger if I stay still, and he'll eat from a fat ball in the palm of my hand. Only does it for a few seconds, but it is magical. then he flies into the Camelia and watches until I put the broken fat ball on the ground. Robins are far more confident.

*I've seen robins fighting over territory, very violent, pigeons are the same. But maybe it is because we put out plenty of food that they have a kind of truce, they don't fight when they are in our garden.
 
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We have a couple of robins that follow me around the garden. One will even come into the workshop sit on a machine give me a bit of a song to get fed.
 
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