Mustela erminea (Stoat, or "Okojo" in Japanese).
Here in Fairbanks, it snowed on October 20th and 21st and the ground was covered with powder snow now. And this morning, we noticed that there were bunch of tracks of some kind of animal by our porch, but we couldn't figure out what kind of animal left those tracks.
In the afternoon, when we brought our bird feeder inside, we found an white animal hopping around on the snowy ground. It was an ermine! It just kept hopping around our porch and woodshed...even under our car. I was so amazed to see how swiftly that little animal can move and jump!
また久々の更新になってしまいました。
フェアバンクスは先週20日と21日に雪が降ってうっすら積もってそのまま解けずに残っています。
そんな白くなった家の前でオコジョを見つけました。
薪を置いている小屋の辺りをずっと駆けずり回っていたので、もしやこの敷地に住み着いてくれているのかも…
First, I thought it was some kind of white bird,
but when I took a close-up, I noticed it was an ermine.
白い鳥かな…と思って、写真を撮ったら、オコジョでした。
薪小屋を行ったり来たり…
It likes to move around our wood shed.
It was running on the beam of the shed.
小屋の梁の上をすばやく駆け上ったかと思うと…
It hops and jumps on the snow...amazingly swiftly.
雪の上をピョンピョン跳ねて移動。
Here is the cropped version.
The picture is blur, but how cute its legs are!
ブレブレだけど、きちんとそろった後ろ足が可愛くないですか？
It was so adorable!
飛び跳ねる瞬間…可愛すぎる…
You can compare its size with our foot prints.
こっちを警戒しつつちょっと近づいたり…
離れたり…
It seems to like our wood shed.
やっぱり薪小屋がお気に入りみたい。
車の下を移動するのも好きみたい。
