It’s a dark winter’s evening with a chill breeze gusting through the trees as I wait at the agreed rendevous point.
I’m in the Galloway Forest, well renowned for its dark skies and the ability to see galaxies of stars. Tonight, it’s a braw bricht moonlit nicht” or “It’s a lovely, bright moonlit night”.
I’m not here for star gazing tonight. I hope to see a native but scarce wild animal that has only returned to the Galloway Forest in the 1980s after being hunted to extinction.
This species was once the second most common carnivore in the UK. Today, it is critically endangered and the second-rarest carnivore in the UK. So what happened to Britain’s Pine Martens?
After a wee bit of research, it became clear that in the late 1800s, they suffered from a loss of habitat, persecution from the fur industry and predator control directly associated with game shooting, and this was a deadly trio of impacts that devastated Pine marten populations in England, Wales and most of Scotland.
This drove the Pine Marten into surviving in just a few scattered pockets across, mainly in the north-west of Scotland where they were in such small numbers, that they were highly vulnerable to disappearing altogether.
Following UK-wide protection for Pine Martens afforded by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, their population has grown slowly.
Tonight I am with people who volunteer their time to support the population of Pine Martens that now call the Galloway Forest their home.
What do pine martens look like?
Pine Martens are a Dark reddish brown colour, with their distinctive creamy yellow bib and a flash of creamy yellow on the tips of their ears.
They are slender with pointed faces and long, bushy tails, which gives them excellent balance whilst they scamper around in the trees.
They are similar to a small domestic cat, with an adult typically 50 -75 cm or around 20-28 inches long. Males are noticeably larger than females, weighing up to 2kg, whilst females weigh about 1kg. In keeping with their ‘cat-like’ qualities, Pine Martens have semi-retractable claws, which enable them to be impressive tree climbers and highly agile and fast when on the ground. They are also very effective hunters with sharp teeth and claws. Pine Martens, though are part of the Mustelid family that includes Stoats, Weasels, Otters and, of course, Badgers.
Pine marten characteristics
Pine Martens are the only mustelid that climbs trees. They can be seen leaping between trees and twisting fluidly in mid-air to ensure a safe landing. Pine martens are most active at dusk. They prefer to live alone and are very territorial, with an adult male requiring a territory from 5 km2, up to 20 km2, depending on food availability.
Pine marten favour well-wooded areas with shrub cover. This is where they have their dens in tree hollows. Females rarely build their own breed nest, instead utilising old squirrel drays or corvid nests.
They will also use purpose-built den boxes. Pine Martens have been found outside of woodlands in habitats such as rocky hillsides and scrubland, but this is rare and unusual.
After a short hike, we made it to the hide that would be our home for the night. The primary shelter provides a welcome respite from the chill December wind as I set up my equipment.
I’m nervous as this is my first time with a new camera and tripod and recording the audio for the Wildlife Matters podcast. My two companions for the night have over thirty years of experience watching the Pine Martens in the area and share quiet confidence and soft low voices.
They were busy creating feeding stations and setting up my low-level background lights while I was setting up. When they returned to the hide, we made a hot, steaming coffee and settled in for the night.
After about an hour, I heard a rustling noise in the trees. As I turned to my companions, they both simultaneously held a single finger to their lips—shoosh. My heart was beating faster as we waited in silence. It was then that I saw a large male Pine Marten moving towards one of the feeding stations.
What do they eat?
Pine martens are omnivores and have a varied seasonal diet. They will eat a range of small mammals such as voles, rabbits, and squirrels. They will eat insects, amphibians, ground-nesting birds, their eggs, and seasonal produce such as fruits and berries.
Like their mustelid cousins, they are opportunistic feeders and are very happy using feed stations loaded with a range of winter treats. Pine Martens are known to have a soft spot for man-made foods such as peanut butter and jam sandwiches, which we have a couple of large sandwich boxes full of, although I was hopeful they were to feed us!
Slowly the Pine Marten left the cover of the scrub and made his way to the feeder. He quickly took a square of jam sandwich and darted back to the scrub. He was gone. I hadn’t taken a picture or remembered to switch the video on.
My deflated feelings soon snapped back into focus as he returned almost as quickly as he left and began to take some apple pieces and nuts from the feeder. This time things went to plan. Relief.
I was told Pine Martens will cache their food, especially during the colder winter. This guy was taking what he could, whilst he could and storing it to ensure he would have food for the coming days.
Several visits later, he began eating some apple pieces before squatting to lick the peanut butter smeared across the log where the feeder bowl had been placed. For me, this was an exciting first sighting of a wild pine marten, and watching it feeding was a truly incredible experience.
Things went quiet again after he left. Yes, a fox had smelt the food on offer but had stayed a shadowy figure in the scrub, deciding not to venture out to enjoy the meal. It may have already found a good meal earlier that night.
The silvery moonlight allowed me to see my companions’ faces without artificial light. The wind was gusting with a chill blast as the moon made its nightly journey across the sky.
It was 2.40 when the rustling in the scrub began again, and then we heard a distinctly cat-like ‘yowelling’ noise. Very unusual, as Pine Martens, being solitary, rarely use any form of sound for communication.
As I sat statuesque and in complete silence, the sight I had been hoping for happened. A female Pine Marten came towards one of the feeders, and right behind her were 2, no wait, 3, wait, look, there were 5 kits.
The kits were young adults now. They would have been born in March or April with their eyes closed and just a thin coat of lightly coloured fur. They depend entirely on their mother for milk and heat and stay in the nest for the first six weeks. She will only leave the nest for short periods to find food. The male Pine Marten plays no part in the raising of the kits.
The kits will develop quickly and begin to adventure away from the nest in July or August, and by October, they will be hunting and finding their food.
The kits usually stay with their mother through their first winter, although they will sleep in their dens. Male kits may leave to find their territories, although this Mum kept all her kits with her.
She would have already mated and will be carrying the next litter of kits that won’t be born until next spring. Pine Martens mate in July or August but have evolved to utilise a biological process known as delayed implantation, which means the kits are born at the best time of year for survival.
The mating season is generally the only time that Pine Martens will communicate audibly. The distinct cat-like call we had heard earlier was the sound they make during mating. Mum was calling her kits to food earlier, but my untrained ear could not differentiate any nuance within the call, although the kits clearly could, as they all came running to the food.
The volunteers I was with were making notes as the data they recorded from these viewings is helping us to understand the behaviour and ecology of Pine Martens and will inform future conservation plans. From this kind of research, we know that Pine Martens typically live for eight to ten years in the wild.
Pine Martens are making something of a recovery after years of persecution by humans.
Foxes and raptors are their main predators in the wild, but the reason for their dramatic decline was entirely down to human persecution.
As the Victorians began to develop shooting estates, Pine Martens, along with many other native wildlife species, were trapped, poisoned and shot relentlessly by Gamekeepers.
Before that, they were hunted for their thick, soft reddish-brown fur. The final factor was habitat, meaning the planting of single-species coniferous plantations.
Pine Martens, as their name suggests, were found in coniferous forests and broadleaved and Ancient woodlands. They evolved in natural pine forests, not the single-species monoculture pine plantations planted by the Victorians for the wood and pulp for paper.
The protection afforded by the Wildlife and Countryside Act-1981 required Forestry works to undertake checks for Pine Marten and other species before works could take place and ended the potential of forestry works being conducted between April and June – when the kits are born and dependent upon their mothers.
This has helped Pine Martens in Scotland to recover to relatively high densities in the Highlands. In the Galloway Forest, I quote: “Pine martens have made a comeback over the past 25 to 30 years. Before that, there weren’t many in this area due to a long history of persecution by gamekeepers. Since game-keeping decreased, and forest areas have increased, pine martens have been able to support the reintroduction of Pine Martens in this and the other regions of Southern Scotland.
Pine Martens have survived in Wales, and some introductions are underway, and in England, a reintroduction programme is underway in the Forest of Dean. Outside of these areas, however, they are non-existent.
Wildlife Matters will be podcasting from the Forest of Dean Pine Marten project at a later date.
But let’s finish this where we started. Coming from the South of England, I have never seen a wild Pine Marten. These enigmatic, agile, arboreal native animals are a vital part of the ecology and ecosystems of the UK and have been missing for way too long due to human persecution.
It is difficult to encapsulate into words the anticipation and excitement I felt when the chance came to see them in their environment.
To see a magnificent adult male caching his food and then the female still with her independent, young adult kits interacting and eating food – similarly to human families still coming together for food was an incredible experience and a memory that I will never forget.
Wildlife Matters would like to thank the volunteers from the local Pine Marten group, who asked not to be credited by name for their great company and for sharing their extensive and in-depth knowledge of Pine Martens in their area. Without you, this would not have been possible.
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