Life

Tony Bailie's Take on Nature: In search of a stoat

The Irish stoat is a distinct sub-species. Picture from Vincent Wildlife Trust
The Irish stoat is a distinct sub-species. Picture from Vincent Wildlife Trust The Irish stoat is a distinct sub-species. Picture from Vincent Wildlife Trust

GO OUT to look for a stoat and you probably won't find one, unless you know exactly where its den is and are prepared to sit and patiently wait for one to enter or leave.

Not that they are particularly rare – there are an estimated 160,000 stoats in Ireland.

The Irish stoat is a distinct sub-species from its relatives in Britain and the rest of Europe – its brown fur is slightly darker than that of its cousins. It is one of our few predatory mammals – foxes are also hunters and while badgers will hunt smaller mammals the bulk of their diet is made up of insects.

Stoats mostly hunt rabbits, rats, mice and birds – they will also clamber up into trees and devour any nest eggs they find.

Their favoured territory is woodland, which is why they are so difficult to spot. The only times I have seen a stoat have been totally by chance and in open countryside, once along the coast, running along a path and darting back into the undergrowth before I had time to fully take it in.

However, its shape was unmistakable – long body and neck, with white fur on its underparts and an elongated narrow tail.

The other time I saw a stoat was close to woodland, but once again on open ground – and despite several return visits they have since stayed hidden from me.

Unlike foxes or badgers, which tend to come out into the open at dusk, stoats will hunt during both night and day. It also seems that, unlike foxes, which can often be seen in towns and cities, stoats have decided that urban dwelling is not for them.

* * *

IN JUNE last year Take on Nature focused on a superbly produced publication by Connswater Community Greenway (CCG), based in east Belfast. Since then What’s Growing on the Greenway, by the Paul Hogarth Company’s Anthony McGuigan and Darren McKinstry, has won both the communications and presentation award and the prestigious 2019 Landscape Institute (LI) President’s Award.

Guest of honour Sir David Attenborough spoke about the importance of reconnecting communities with nature, and the part this can play in ensuring the natural world’s protection.

"You have a great responsibility to bring the realities of the natural world to the understanding and the love of human beings worldwide," he told attendees.

The LI citation said the Connswater Community Greenway "brilliantly connects people to the green space and biodiversity around them through a 9km linear park in east Belfast.

Following the course of the Connswater, Knock and Loop Rivers, the Greenway creates "a vibrant, attractive, and accessible parkland for leisure, recreation, and community events".

It continued: "The two landscape architects responsible for the project wrote a weekly blog to encourage and celebrate the communities’ interaction with the new landscape.

"Ordinarily, following a significant capital investment, landscape professionals move on to the next project. They rarely have the opportunity to engage with the people experiencing the place they helped to shape and create. Darren and Anthony bucked this trend with their blog, which grew in popularity – spawning two photographic exhibitions and a book detailing a year of exploring the developing connection between people, place, and nature in a revitalised urban landscape.

LI president Adam White said the Conswater Community Greenway had created a diverse habitat with space for wildlife and plants to thrive.

"The figures speak for themselves – 20,000 trees, 20,000 aquatic plants, 2,000 bulbs and 20,000 metres squared of wildflower meadow," Mr White said.

"But it’s what followed the completion of the project that really caught my eye. [Anthony and Darren] came up with a truly innovative way to continue community engagement and foster further ownership once their project was opened to the public…

"Having visited the project earlier in the year and meet some of the community I learnt first-hand how they understood, appreciated and genuinely wanted to protect and enhance the new park for generations to come."