American Marten martes americana
Meet the friend we had living in our roof for several months in the winter of 2009-2010. "Mac" as we call her is an American Marten. Martens are mustelids, which means they are related to weasels, wolverines, fishers, and a few other species.
They are considered to be carnivores, meaning that they eat mostly meat. However, martens are known to have a real "sweet tooth," loving blue berries and other berries, especially. I sometimes saw the evidence of Mac's hunting. It was fascinating to follow the trail where she (we don't really know Mac's gender, we just took to calling Mac a "she") had dug down in the snow to where a vole was and chased it quite a ways. I saw the little rodent's tracks go under our car and take sharp turns several places. Clever little thing. As the tracks had been trampled past a certain point, I was unable to tell which one of the critters had won the chase. |