Of the Mustelidae Family

I saw that fisher again today.  I had gone into another room that that has a view down into the yard.  And, in the early morning shuffle between phone calls and getting the car ready for my daughter, I saw him bounding down across the snow, as if trying to show me precisely how the paw-prints we’d been wondering about had been made.  It looked like he was heading straight for the woods but then he stopped and turned around and headed back up to the house.  I ran out to the living room to get my binoculars but by the time I was out on the porch looking for him he was long gone.  Or was he?

A member of the Mustelidae family, that includes weasels and skunks and minks, I am fairly sure I’ve got this guy properly identified, even though I’ve never gotten closer than thirty or forty feet.  It might have been a marten, but they max-out at twenty-three inches in length.  This guy was certainly bigger than that.  Weasels, minks and ferrets are also too small.  A badger has the distinctive coloring and a wolverine just looks too damn big.  I looked online and some naturalists in our Ulster Country, had put beaver meat up to a tree and filmed what came to visit.  In addition to the coyotes and ravens they have a photo of fishers climbing for a meal.  I wonder what it is about our yard that that attracts this guy.  Yes, I did think about setting up such a bloody lure, but I don’t believe Tops carries raw beaver meat. 

The guy is here shoveling the driveway.  I haven’t met him yet, but I’ll go out now and shake his hand . . . Nice guy.  Reasonable rates.  We had a brief chat and when I mentioned China he confirmed that he was concerned meeting someone else in town who “goes to China.”  She might have the flu . . .  I suspect I too will need to be explaining to people that I did not visit Wuhan and that it’s a big country, when next I return from Beijing.

This plowman’s accent is now stuck in my head.  I came inside and  my wife and discussed his pricing using his voice.  It was automatic.  I just knew it was there and it was.  Some other voice, I might flounder around with, but I heard his and it stuck like Velcro in my mind.  It is there, on the wall, if I want it.  I just need to imagine him standing there by his truck, squinting in the sun light. 

I’m going to go out and have a look at those tracks in the snow to see if I can learn any more about where the fisher went and how he hops.  I’ll leave some sunflower seeds down there, knowing though that this omnivore would apparently prefer beaver tartare.

Tuesday, 01/21/19