A skating stoat!

Playful stoat cubs, acrylic painting by Robert E Fuller

I have a fantastic video clip of a stoat examining the ice on the pond in my garden. It's incredible to watch the stoat as it encounters the thin film of ice on the water. This young male is just a year old so it could possibly be the first time it has come across ice. Watch the video link below to see how it pauses as it lowers its head to drink in the pond and then, incredibly, slips its whole head under the ice to take a look at it from underneath!

It doesn't take long before the stoat has figured out that it can actually walk across the pond.Watch how the animal slips over the thin ice. What balance! It's not long before it can skate with confidence.

As a wildlife artist I have positioned surveillance cameras throughout my garden so that I look into the secret world of wildlife. Moments like this make up the whole story of the animals that I pose and I use this research to inform my final paintings. Take a look at my latest stoat studies.

Stoat, acrylic painting by Robert E Fuller

Stoat painting in acrylic, by Robert E Fuller.

Playful stoat cubs by Robert E Fuller.

Night out in a badger bunker

Last night I stayed the night in my badger bunker - the stars were amazing & the badgers weren't bad either. I saw 8 different adults and 3 cubs.
Mum took two of the cubs foraging up the bank to one of the sett's outposts, chittering as she went. En route, she came across the boar and they started to groom each other. The cubs continued to rive about and playing - so full of energy.
Mum decided she wanted a bit of 'me time' and deposited the cubs into the nearest hole so she could enjoy a night stroll with the boar. But the cubs were having none of it. They were wide awake & followed the pair at a distance. She carried each back to the hole with great patience, until after the 4th time of disobedience she had to give one of them a bit of a scuffle.
Temperatures plummeted to below freezing last night, so I was a bit on the cold side and I was woken up by another cub, who had accidentally popped out of a hole in the middle of the night and couldn't find his way back - he sounded like a trapped piglet. But it was certainly good fun, so I'll be back again soon.

A Valentine Badger Bodge

Valentine’s day wasn’t the most romantic for me and the Mrs. It turned out to be the only day I could get together enough friends – and borrow a teleporter – to put up my new badger hide.
I’ve been working on this for months and it was fantastic to see it finally in place – five metres high in a tree opposite a badger set.
I have fitted it with double glazing and insulation so I reckon I can bear badger watching nights in all weather – although putting it in place turned out to be particularly freezing.
Perhaps I can make it up to my wife in the summer with a romantic sunset picnic up there – after reading my column on courting grebes for The Yorkshire Post, http://www.robertefuller.com/RobertEFullersite/wildlife-diary-feb09-grebe.htm, I think she was expecting dinner at the very least.

A grebe painting by me!

Anyhow, fellow wildlife lovers, watch this space– I’m hoping to photograph badger cubs in the spring and see them grow up.