I know, I know, you probably thought I was done blogging about martins, and I did too, but I had forgotten about two other martins that I had live-trapped in 2013. Here are the two blogs I had written about them:
I am pretty convinced that my theory that there was a marten family in the neighborhood is correct. On Monday I blogged that I had caught an adolescent in the live trap, and this morning there was another skinny, long-legged one in the egg baited live trap that I had placed in the dog house. This one was thinner than the previous one. And as you can see, it didn’t even bother to eat the egg.
I put the trap with the captured marten in the back of the truck and drove it out to a thickly wooded area even farther away from where I had dropped off marten # 1. When I opened the trap it scampered off into the woods. I hope it finds lots of things to eat out there because it needs to put on some weight. They eat a lot of mice, and there are so many free ranging neighbor’s cats around our house I suspect the competition for mice is pretty great.
I hope this is the end of our marten invasion, but I will continue to set the live trap. Why not, I still have the egg.
It’s deja vu all over again. Yesterday, when I went out to check the live trap I had put in the dog house, I discovered I had caught my third marten. I have been catching one every week for 3 weeks now. After I catch them, I drive them way out the road and let them loose in the woods. I am having to drive farther and farther away with each successive capture. I drove this one out 12 km (7.5 miles) down the road.
This martin looked healthier than the last one and it wasn’t so snarly. I can’t imagine that there are anymore around here, but I will set the trap out again, just in case I am wrong. It is sure strange that I had never seen a marten around here before this year and suddenly, there seems to be an explosion of them.
View my paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca
No comments:
Post a Comment