Monday February 4 2007

I am always enthralled by the familiar sight of a set of small animal tracks in the snow around the Nature Center, a perfect pattern of two-by-two footprints, the prints slightly off-set and as consistent a pattern as if machine-made to exactness.  The long-tailed weasel, thin as a ribbon with a pointed nose like an arrow-head, is a small beautiful mammal entirely adapted to its environment.  First consider the annual change in its sleek fur coat.  Twice a year weasels shed their fur, once in the spring and again in the fall. This process is controlled by change in day length, or the photoperiod. The coat of weasels in northern populations is white in winter and brown in summer, while those in southern populations are brown year round, but year-round sporting a small black-tipped tail.  Second, a stealth and effective predator, it has the ability to adapt to a changing prey base by season, and will even kill and cache prey items when given a chance.