Weasels and stoats are normally just spotted as shapes racing across a country road at an increadibly high speed for something so small.
Such was the case this morning on Clieves Hills.
I rounded a corner and there was a weasel - the smaller of the two compared with a stoat and without a black tip to its tail - working away at F! speeds.
It crossed part-way across the road and then did what all nature seems to do - it turned back. It did a circle in the blink of an eye and then disappeared into the verge.
You need to see several - usually on several occasions - to build up a picture of what they are like as animals. They are extremely agile and you can imagine that small rodents and mammals whose paths are crossed by a hunting weasel or stoat have little or no chance ot outwitting or outrunning them.
They have a fiercesome reputation as hunters. I usually see a stoat two or three times during the year in Downholland, between the Saracen's Head and Farmer Ted's on the bend by Sparrow Wood. Although much larger, they are just as agile and fascinating to watch.
I'm still trying to work out why a pintail duck was sitting on the chimney of my neighbour's house yesterday morning. It did not flinch when I walked out to the garage, ran the car out, closed the door or sat and watched it for five minutes. It's the first time I've seen a duck perched on the chimney of a three-storey house inland!
Music On The Moss: After The Byrds, we're back to another favourite: Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band. I loved Trout Mask Replica from first hearing it in 1969. But my favourite album is the one which followed, Lick My Decals Off, Baby. With just one guitarist, it's pared down but still full of complexities. Doctor Dark is the top tune, followed by the instrumental One Red Rose That I Mean. This is the album on which Peon first appeared and it is interesting to compare this take with the same musicians playing it live by a Devon stream on the later Mallard album. There is some frantic harmonica on I Love You, Big Dummy but you also get more of the frenetic sax playing by The Captain. He also really uses his vocal range on this album, which encompasses everything from humour to rage.

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