Stoat
I sat quietly and watched this female Stoat bringing food to her kits in a den under an old pile of brash. Sometimes she disappeared for about 10 minutes, and sometimes she stood vigilant for danger at the den entrance. I never actually saw the kits but I could hear them growling under the brash pile. Stoats have a litter of 4-8 kits and they are dependent on their mother for 3-4 months. Incidentally this was taken with a 420mm lens at f5.6 and is barely cropped. You can see how close she was as the line of focus takes in only her face.
Female Stoats are noticeably smaller than males, and that is the same for Weasels too. So it isn't always easy to tell a large male Weasel from a small female Stoat, unless you see the large, black-tipped tail on a Stoat. The border between the white underparts and brown upperparts is usually straight on Stoats and irregular on British Weasels, but to complicate matters Continental Weasels usually have a straight edge, like a Stoat.
Stoat
I sat quietly and watched this female Stoat bringing food to her kits in a den under an old pile of brash. Sometimes she disappeared for about 10 minutes, and sometimes she stood vigilant for danger at the den entrance. I never actually saw the kits but I could hear them growling under the brash pile. Stoats have a litter of 4-8 kits and they are dependent on their mother for 3-4 months. Incidentally this was taken with a 420mm lens at f5.6 and is barely cropped. You can see how close she was as the line of focus takes in only her face.
Female Stoats are noticeably smaller than males, and that is the same for Weasels too. So it isn't always easy to tell a large male Weasel from a small female Stoat, unless you see the large, black-tipped tail on a Stoat. The border between the white underparts and brown upperparts is usually straight on Stoats and irregular on British Weasels, but to complicate matters Continental Weasels usually have a straight edge, like a Stoat.