Fisher

Back to the subject of recent visitors:  I made a trip into Calumet on the afternoon of April 14 to do some things at Mom's place. While I was away, Steve saw an animal come out of the woods at the back of the house. He thought it was a pine marten (American marten), a member of the weasel family. Unfortunately, he couldn't find the camera to snap a photo.

Later the same day - just as we were finishing dinner - we both saw it come out of the woods again. I left the table to retrieve the camera. The animal didn't move much. It seemed like he/she was sensing/smelling the dog (just out of sight in the garage at that time). The sun was creating quite a glare on all the windows at the back of the house and I had to zoom in quite a bit, but I did snap 3 photos before it ran back into the woods. The quality isn't good, but here's what we saw.

 

After studying up on the pine marten (and talking to a few locals), we realized this animal wasn't a pine marten; it was a fisher - also a member of the weasel family - but larger than the marten. It was about the size of the fox we saw 10 days later. One interesting fact we learned is that the fisher is one of the few natural predators of the porcupine. If you would like to read more about the fisher, click on the following link:

Fisher (animal)

All is well in the Keweenaw.