I hear there is a mink in the valley- they are devils and will kill anything they get near. They are not native and have no natural predators, apart from man. Some misguided animal liberators released them from mink farms and had a lot of adverse publicity a few years ago – but American mink were already well established in most of the UK long before that, as escapes or deliberate releases from uneconomic mink farms. (it is not commonly known that there were at least 30 farms in UK where mink were bred for the fur trade in disgusting conditions - till wearing of fur became unfashionable.
I have the skull of one in my collection that came up the Axe a few years ago – only to meet it’s end by attempting to climb a drain pipe after swallows nests – but slid back down and drowned in the rain barrel !
All the conservation bodies in Somerset now have a policy of trapping the little brutes.
Picture – mink killing kingfisher from Halcyon River.BBC
So, apart from Mink, here is a wish for peace to all the Almighty's creatures and for the world in 2016
Happy Solstice/Christmas
Les C