Seen today

[Mrs Pingu]

Otter?

[Wowbagger]

Otters are gurt big buggers. More likely a ferret/polecat or a mink, I'd guess.

[Dibdib]

Not today but caught sight of a deer yesterday on my way home after the club run. I already knew there were deer in some of the greener less concreted bits of Swindon, but they usually¹ keep away from people so I don't spot them very often.

(1. Except for one, who I found wandering along a fairly busy road. He'd managed to find his way from his bit of forest into the car park of an office block, and from there onto the road. Thankfully I wasn't in a rush, and could stop to shoo him back through the gap in the fence.)

[Mrs Pingu]

Otters are gurt big buggers. More likely a ferret/polecat or a mink, I'd guess.

An otter is between stoat and badger size though, which was the OP's window.

[matthew]

Otters are gurt big buggers. More likely a ferret/polecat or a mink, I'd guess.

An otter is between stoat and badger size though, which was the OP's window.

The other one to consider is the American Mink that has escaped from fur farms.

[Crumbling Nick]

Otters are gurt big buggers. More likely a ferret/polecat or a mink, I'd guess.

An otter is between stoat and badger size though, which was the OP's window.

The other one to consider is the American Mink that has escaped from fur farms.

Euphemism of the year ?
Mink are depressingly common & about the right size. They are a lot bolder than otters. The ones I've seen were untroubled by humans.

[Tim Hall]

English longhorn cattle, sometime yesterday, but I'm blessed if I can remember where.  I do like a good cow.

[Pingu]

Otters are gurt big buggers. More likely a ferret/polecat or a mink, I'd guess.

An otter is between stoat and badger size though, which was the OP's window.

The other one to consider is the American Mink that has escaped from fur farms.

Euphemism of the year ?
Mink are depressingly common & about the right size. They are a lot bolder than otters. The ones I've seen were untroubled by humans.

Are mink always black?

[Crumbling Nick]

Otters are gurt big buggers. More likely a ferret/polecat or a mink, I'd guess.

An otter is between stoat and badger size though, which was the OP's window.

The other one to consider is the American Mink that has escaped from fur farms.

Euphemism of the year ?
Mink are depressingly common & about the right size. They are a lot bolder than otters. The ones I've seen were untroubled by humans.

Are mink always black?

I suspect there's an allusion there which has passed me by, but I haven't seen a black one. Mrs N. advises that mink coats used to come in a wide range of shades, which were presumably the result of selective breeding.

The site of JonBuoy's wee beastie is interesting. It's not very far from the Mease, which I'd guess to be otter territory, since the Tame has otters. However, & ICBW, I don't think ottters travel that far from water. Meanwhile, otters displace mink from the waterways, but the latter move onto the surrounding land. If the animal were roadkill, then mink would seem more likely.

[Vince]

Rabbity things.

First a white rabbit, which was close to a ginger rabbit. Later on I saw a hare which is more unusual.

[Tim Hall]

Red Kite near Fleet services on the M3.  They'm definitely spreading.

[fuzzy]

Saw a red kite soaring over the m4 between junctions 14 and 13 on Monday.

[cycleman]

A green woodpecker near Chertsey lock 

[JonBuoy]

Otters are gurt big buggers. More likely a ferret/polecat or a mink, I'd guess.

An otter is between stoat and badger size though, which was the OP's window.

The other one to consider is the American Mink that has escaped from fur farms.

Euphemism of the year ?
Mink are depressingly common & about the right size. They are a lot bolder than otters. The ones I've seen were untroubled by humans.

Are mink always black?

I suspect there's an allusion there which has passed me by, but I haven't seen a black one. Mrs N. advises that mink coats used to come in a wide range of shades, which were presumably the result of selective breeding.

The site of JonBuoy's wee beastie is interesting. It's not very far from the Mease, which I'd guess to be otter territory, since the Tame has otters. However, & ICBW, I don't think ottters travel that far from water. Meanwhile, otters displace mink from the waterways, but the latter move onto the surrounding land. If the animal were roadkill, then mink would seem more likely.

I originally thought that the otter suggestion was ridiculous due to the location but CN's comment prompted a bit of Googling which turn up this: http://www.cliftoncampville.com/mease.html  Not so ridiculous after all as Googlemaps shows that there is even a tributary of the Mease running from where the corpse was found.  In reality I suspect that it is merely a big ditch.

I popped back to the scene of the crime on Tuesday evening to get a photo but by then the poor thing was looking very much the worse for wear.  Having refreshed my memory of the beast I am now pretty sure that it was indeed a mink.  Thanks for the education!

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

A kestrel, hovering over the waste ground at the back of our office. A crow chased it off.

[Crumbling Nick]

Otters are gurt big buggers. More likely a ferret/polecat or a mink, I'd guess.

An otter is between stoat and badger size though, which was the OP's window.

The other one to consider is the American Mink that has escaped from fur farms.

Euphemism of the year ?
Mink are depressingly common & about the right size. They are a lot bolder than otters. The ones I've seen were untroubled by humans.

Are mink always black?

I suspect there's an allusion there which has passed me by, but I haven't seen a black one. Mrs N. advises that mink coats used to come in a wide range of shades, which were presumably the result of selective breeding.

The site of JonBuoy's wee beastie is interesting. It's not very far from the Mease, which I'd guess to be otter territory, since the Tame has otters. However, & ICBW, I don't think ottters travel that far from water. Meanwhile, otters displace mink from the waterways, but the latter move onto the surrounding land. If the animal were roadkill, then mink would seem more likely.

I originally thought that the otter suggestion was ridiculous due to the location but CN's comment prompted a bit of Googling which turn up this: http://www.cliftoncampville.com/mease.html  Not so ridiculous after all as Googlemaps shows that there is even a tributary of the Mease running from where the corpse was found.  In reality I suspect that it is merely a big ditch.

I popped back to the scene of the crime on Tuesday evening to get a photo but by then the poor thing was looking very much the worse for wear.  Having refreshed my memory of the beast I am now pretty sure that it was indeed a mink.  Thanks for the education!

Thanks for that link. I learnt a lot from it. I had no idea that the Mease is a SSSI, nor that it has a population of white-clawed crayfish .

[tiermat]

Red Kite near Fleet services on the M3.  They'm definitely spreading.

More precisely they are being spread.

There has been a protected breeding program, over the last X years, in North Wales.  The area they use has now become over crowded so the young, after fledging, are being distributed around the country to re-populate areas where they were once common.

[fuzzy]

Red Kite near Fleet services on the M3.  They'm definitely spreading.

More precisely they are being spread.

There has been a protected breeding program, over the last X years, in North Wales.  The area they use has now become over crowded so the young, after fledging, are being distributed around the country to re-populate areas where they were once common.

There is a protected breeding programme a bit closer- Stokenchurch (Junction 5 of the M40). Their birds are spreading without help I think.

[Pingu]

Meanwhile, there's slaughter up here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-26784573 

[Pingu]

Really close to a sql today, shame we only had Mrs P's phone to take pics with:

[Wowbagger]

I awoke yerterday at about 2am thinking we were being burgled by someone who didn't care how much noise they made. Eventuually I worked out what was going on: there was an attempted burglary going on, but it was a fox trying to raid our food waste bin. I couldn't see him from the bedroom window so I crept downstairs, grabbing a Hope Vision 1 on the way, reached the back door and then shone the light through the glass. There was the culprit, about 18 inches away, looking confused and dazzled by the light. I would imagine that foxes become so accustomed to automatic security lights coming on that they get blasé about them, so it was a few seconds before he leapt over the 8' wall between our garden and our neighbours'.

[Bledlow]

Red Kite near Fleet services on the M3.  They'm definitely spreading.

More precisely they are being spread.

There has been a protected breeding program, over the last X years, in North Wales.  The area they use has now become over crowded so the young, after fledging, are being distributed around the country to re-populate areas where they were once common.

There is a protected breeding programme a bit closer- Stokenchurch (Junction 5 of the M40). Their birds are spreading without help I think.

Yeah. For example, rooting around behind fast food shops in Reading. If I doze in my back garden, I'm bound to see one checking me out if I open my eyes & look up.

A single kite isn't anything anyone comments on round here now, unless it's doing something unusual. Mrs B commented on a crowd of them yesterday - because it was a crowd. The two jays that flew across the road in front of us, though - that was worth pointing out. As was the unusually large & sleek fox running through the grounds of some flats near us yesterday afternoon.

[Cudzoziemiec]

In contrast to Bledlow's fox, the one I saw this morning - 9am so well past fox bedtime - was very mangy. Does mange interfere with their diurnal rhythms or something? Never normally see one so late in the day.

[hellymedic]

Some of the local foxes are mangy.
I see foxes at almost any hour of the day or night.
Some foxes, like cats, seem to enjoy basking in the midday sun on the centre of my lawn.

[fuzzy]

Not seen but heard- woodpecker pecking.