The most interesting wildlife I saw at the weekend was squashed on the road - so wasn't looking its best. My best guess is that it was a polecat but it might just have been a polecat/ferret hybrid. The fact that it had a white nose and black hairs running from the nose to its black face-mask suggests, I'm told, quite strongly, a true polecat.
I had thought that this was out of the question because polecats were too rare and lived too far to the west to be squashed on a Northamptonshire road. But I was wrong - it is a perfectly feasible record. Polecats are sneaking their way back across the country and returning to counties in the Midlands and east of England. I suspect that without finding a squashed one, I would never have known they were back - mammals lead sneaky nocturnal existences living in a quiet world of smells.
Another sneaky mammal is the otter - and I do know they are back in Northants because I've seen them twice at Stanwick Lakes. The first time was one still evening when two otters were suddenly swimming close to the path - so close I could hear them exhale. They were gone in seconds but it still made a wonderful wildlife moment. The other sighting was more dramatic but even briefer - a moorhen ran along the river bank with an otter in pursuit.
Everyone likes otters (do they?) but they are predators. I think the moorhen got away but that otter will be killing fish, a few small mammals, frogs and birds throughout its life. Some people have a strange attitude to predators - they demonise them, and a few take it further than that - they persecute them with traps, guns and poisons.
So the mammals may have got it right being sneaky - keep your head down and get on with your perfectly natural murderous existence and hardly anyone will notice. Our birds of prey aren't sneaky enough - they soar, they skydance, they call, they make obvious nests and they come out during the day! How foolish is all of that? And that is why birds of prey are all too often killed illegally despite the legal protection that they have had for decades. If you think that birds of prey need a better deal then please sign our bird of prey pledge - you'll be joining over 100,000 others.
And if you dislike birds of prey then tell me why and I'll try to understand you better.
Next week, this blog will have birds of prey as a theme. There will be the usual mixture of topics covered but each day there will be a post about birds of prey and an invitation to join our campaign to give them a better deal.