4. An unusual looking ferret

‘Curtain twitching’ takes on a whole new meaning when you live in a house in the country with no neighbours within half a mile. It’s the early morning peep through the curtains before opening them fully, just in case there is some interesting wildlife scene unfolding outside the window. Disappointment usually follows, but as the house overlooks a river, or ‘drain’ as the Environment Agency rather unromantically calls it, I always lived in hope of seeing one of my favourite birds.

I knew there were kingfishers on this stretch of the river, and one of the first things I did after moving into the house was to provide a wooden post at the edge of the water from which they could fish. Not once in two years had this facility been used, although on one memorable occasion, as I peered through partly opened curtains, I was able to watch a kingfisher, not fishing, but bathing and preening on a paving stone alongside the perch. For several heart-stopping minutes, it repeatedly dropped into the water and returned to its position to groom its spectacular feathers.

Occasionally, a moment of quiet contemplation at the window has been rewarded with a fleeting glimpse of what looked like a turquoise Exocet missile, streaking along the river just a few inches above the water. How true that some of the best sights occur when you are not looking for them! Similarly, looking for a particular creature will often lead to something totally unexpected.

My first thought on this particular morning, as I peered through a gap in the curtains, was that someone had lost their ferret. I had seen ferrets before, and know they come in a huge variety of colours, but I had never seen one this colour before. How it took me so long to correctly identify it remains a mystery, and it was only when I was describing it to a work colleague that the penny finally dropped. ‘Dark brown, almost black, beautiful glossy fur’ - of course it wasn’t a ferret, it was a mink!

The American mink was first brought to Europe in the late 1920s, and they were bred for their coats in commercial mink farms all over Britain. Escapees, and possibly individuals released by animal rights activists, quickly established a wild breeding population, first reported in 1956, and they are now a well-established feature of Britain’s waterways.

I recall a family day out, at some time in the mid-1980s, walking part of the ‘Viking Way’ by the River Bain. We spotted a group of hunters in green jackets and long boots, with hounds of some sort, and we were curious to find out the nature of their quarry. My teenage niece, far more out-going than anyone else in our family, approached the group of hunters and asked them what they were hunting. “Mink and coypu” they replied. Both are invasive species from the Americas with similar histories, although the latter were finally eradicated in 1989.

Thrilling as it is to see wild animals in their natural environment, I admit to having mixed feelings about seeing a mink. They are fearsome hunters, with no natural predators, and are responsible for eating huge numbers of water vole and riverside birds. I am sure it is no coincidence that it was another anxious six months before I caught a glimpse of a water vole, one of our most treasured neighbours, swimming purposefully across the drain outside our house.