A fisher slinking in my woods
Around 6pm, early evening, and I was sitting outside on my deck, watching the wooded area. There is a fallen tree in there, and I am sure it is a habitat for many creatures. I saw a fisher slinking around the fallen tree. This is the first time I’ve seen one in my woods. It was quite small, just a bit bigger than a squirrel. I would guess it’s young. I’ve seen fishers a few times in the past in other places, and they were bigger than this one. But the way it moves is unmistakable. It slinks, which is different than the bouncy motion of a squirrel, or the motion of a rabbit. It must have found a chipmunk in the tree habitat. I saw it slinking away, down the low rock wall, with a chipmunk in its mouth. It circled around in the woods, and then slinked away again down the same rock wall, carrying the chipmunk.
There is a vernal pool in that direction, and I wonder if it lives near water. It’s actually good to see a predator. We don’t have many predators, and there are a lot of squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits and voles. I imagine the hawks and other raptors don’t hunt in the woods. Over the years, the balance has been off. 9 years ago, we saw coyotes roaming around, and there were fewer rodent burrows around my house at that time.
The woods are also full of ticks. When I visited the wolf sanctuary in Ipswich, I learned that we actually have more ticks because we no longer have the apex predator, because the ticks are carried by all of the rodents and the deer.
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cool observation! We've occasionally seen a fischer near our property. There is clearly an abundance of large rabbits (not our native cotton tails) around our yard eating our flowers and I have come to appreciate the role of predators !
What a fascinating observation!! I don't know how big a young fisher is but fisher cats are usually 2-5 ft in length while squrriels are about 9.1-12 in. A stoat however would be closer to a squrriel at the males being 7.4-13 in. and the females being 6.7-11 in.
Yes horrible ticks. They are one of the major reasons why so many moose die.
@jobird I think you're right! I saw it again this morning, and it is quite small. It moves so fast, it's very hard to get a picture, or a good look. I think it's actually a short-tailed weasel that I've been seeing. It may have been carrying a vole, not a chipmunk. After reading about it, I think I have the right habitat and community for it here - fallen and rotting trees, plenty of voles and burrows.
it sounds more likely to be something in the weasel family but still cool to witness something in the act of catching prey! i saw two fishers last year chasing each other up a tree and they were actually quite large. a little bigger than a cat and body long like a martin, mink or weasel. i wonder how hard it was to catch that chipmunk...
@janezupan That is soo fascinating!! Weasels are fascinating to watch. I used to have one living around my yard that seemed to be living under my shed however now that our neighbors have dogs I haven't seen one in awhile along with the wild rabbits that frequented my yard.
That is interesting information about the ticks and predator connection. It is eye-opening to learn of the community connections. Listening to a podcast the other day, I learned that our demand for avocados is affecting the monarch butterfly. Due to the high demand, farmer's in Mexico are cutting down the forest that monarchs return to in order to plant avocado orchards.
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