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Can you identify this animal?


Gareth E

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1 hour ago, Gareth E said:

Swimming on the far side of the canal the other day. Very mink like, but it definitely wasn't. Smaller than a mink, maybe the size of a squirrel or a touch bigger. Brown hair rather than the black of a mink.

Any ideas?

 

Was there any white showing?   Both Stoat and Weasel can swim.

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14 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

Brown rat?

I wondered that except that he said 'very mink like' and the tails are a mile apart. 

1 hour ago, Ray T said:

Both of which are much, much smaller than a mink which I why I doubted them, but who knows?

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49 minutes ago, Jim Riley said:

Can't resist.... 

How to spot and differentiate... 

One is weasily distinguished, t'other stoataly different! 

BOOM TISHSH! 

And otters are otterly different to weasels and stoats :D

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Can't really help to identify your animal since I was totally unable to identify an animal that I saw crossing the canal ahead of me recently. About rat sized but what had me totally baffled was it submerged on the right hand side of the canal ahead of me, swam the width of the canal underwater then surfaced about a foot from the reeds on the left hand side, then scuttled off through the reeds. The rats I've seen always swim on the surface, I don't know how far a vole swims underwater, and it was far too small to be an otter (and it was the middle of the day). I looked through the nature books and internet sites and am still none the wiser.

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1 hour ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

Can't really help to identify your animal since I was totally unable to identify an animal that I saw crossing the canal ahead of me recently. About rat sized but what had me totally baffled was it submerged on the right hand side of the canal ahead of me, swam the width of the canal underwater then surfaced about a foot from the reeds on the left hand side, then scuttled off through the reeds. The rats I've seen always swim on the surface, I don't know how far a vole swims underwater, and it was far too small to be an otter (and it was the middle of the day). I looked through the nature books and internet sites and am still none the wiser.

If it was rat size I would say almost certainly Water Vole.   They are very competent underwater having many entrances to their tunnels below the surface.  I would suggest your presence would encourage it to stay down longer than it might otherwise.

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