Weasels of West Yorkshire

Weasel | Mustela nivalis

Two leaves tumbleweed down our lane in a peculiar way. I don’t know what draws my eyes to them in particular, the odd movement I guess. Then it hits me.

“What’s that, is it two rats fighting?!” I say to Chris as I slow the car to a halt. As I spoke, I already felt hope switch on inside me that this could be our first in-person sighting of a live mustelid on our farm. I’d been hoping since moving here three and a half years ago. So far I’ve seen two weasels scurry across moorland roads on the tops, and a dead stoat near the farm.

We stare.

“I’m getting out for a closer look,” Chris says excitedly and I say too abruptly, “don’t you’ll scare them off!” Regretting the way it came out straight away, too snappy and not calmly instructional.

I never mean to do it, least of all when Chris is excited about wildlife, but my urgency at preventing them running away made it come out too sharp. “I just mean, they’ll probably run away if you go near them,” I try to recover but Chris is downbeat from …