John and I were trying to clear the snow from our driveway and car and truck after a heavy snow storm last night and all day today (and still snowing as I write this!)!
I looked at something I thought was movement... and it was a small vole/mouse thing scurrying across the snow from our yard across the street and it then dived into a snow pile across the road from us.
We followed it over and then we looked back and saw another of the same little creatures following in the tracks of the previous one. It paused at the snow pile where the other mouse had gone but passed it and scurried up the road near our across the street neighbor and beyond. A little dark gray shape against all the snow.
Then, dramatic music, another shape appeared! An ermine! All white with a black tail tip. It went right by us and paused near the snow pile, but seemed to be on the scent of the second poor little mouse. It searched and searched and then far up the road, it found it and disappeared with it.
In ALL our years here we never saw anything like that happen! And then the ermine reappeared in our garden. It slipped into a hole in the snow and peeked out every so often. This all happened so fast and the creatures were too quick to run and get my phone or camera!
I waited a while for the ermine to reappear, but it didn't while I was there. John went to shovel the flat roof and said he could see the ermine going back and forth along the path he snow-blowed to the wood pile and back to the garden. Since there were no photos of this wildlife encounter... I had to draw up a reenactment of the events. Here they are, as if you were there yourself!
