Last evening, Anne decided to walk the beach. I thought that it was too buggy, but that’s just me. She only walked the short end, so maybe it was a wee bit buggy? She was rewarded though, when she captured on “film” pictures of the above critter. Our question is, “Is it a mink or a weasel?” Anne thinks that it is too small to be a mink. One point for weasel. Although, she did photograph it, in-between these too shots, swimming in the lake. One point for mink. Mink are darker than weasels. One more point for mink. In the end, it could be a juvenile mink or a weasel or a polecat or a polecat-mink hybrid, polecat-weasel hybrid, but it is definitely not a frog. We have seen no frogs this summer. The Critter might have been attracted by some fish guts left on the beach or it could have been after the merganser chicks that roost out on the nearby rocks. I again thank my lucky stars that I bought her, her new camera. Small enough that it fits in her pockets, but powerful enough that it can capture these shots. Go, Anne!
Today, Anne and I were walking the beach together and while she was snapping pictures of the mergansers out on their rocks, I spied the mink. It came out from the embankment and down to the water. It poked around the fish scales, which are all that’s left of yesterday’s fish cleaning and then came walking towards me. I alerted Anne, but tried to stand as quietly as possible. It came walking along the water’s edge, then stopped to inspect me. It was only about ten feet away. It looked like a juvenile. It continued on down the beach, passing Anne and soon disappeared into the rocks past the end of the short end of the beach.