I walked out onto our back porch yesterday afternoon , and to my surprise,
the Chestnut-backed Chickadee flock and Red-breasted Nuthatch group, along
with a Spotted Towhee, were scolding , scolding! Quite a cacophony it was,
but who or what was disturbing them? I looked around, and finally observed a
little head sticking out of one of the holes in a tall Cascara snag, where
we hang a sunflower seed feeder on a stub of one of its large dead branches.
The Douglas squirrels (Chickaree) love to run up and down inside the snag,
through the holes in the snag, but there was no Chickaree, and the birds are
accustomed to seeing and hearing the squirrels. I finally realized that it
was the face of an Ermine (also called Short-tailed Weasel, Mustela
erminea.) I watched it for a while, and of course, talked to it as well.
After popping its head in and out a few times, it decided that perhaps the
harassment was too much, and disappeared, probably down to the ground and
through the Salal and Sword Ferns to an escape passageway underground.

The birds finally stopped their alarming, and all was well as they returned
to feeding at the seed feeder and a special suet-mix cage, and the
Chickarees resumed their trips along the snag, jumping to the nearby Filbert
trees to snatch every last nut before the Stellers Jays could get too many.

Watching and listening to the antics of wildlife is so much fun, especially
when it is right at your back door.

Erin Woods
Woods Tree Farm
Redmond, Washington