Close Encounter with a Mink

Our temperatures have been seriously cold for December –much more like it usually is in January or February. On Thursday of this week, we finally reached a high of 13 or 14º and it was the warmest day in 8 days! This warming trend (if you can call it that) continued into this weekend and this Saturday was fairly tolerable –especially when the sun even came out. I bundled up and went first for a walk at MAC park over in Crystal behind the airport. It's kind of a small park but similar habitat to PLP. However I didn't see hardly anything there save for maybe a Nuthatch, a couple of Woodpeckers, and a Red-tailed Hawk from a long ways away. I was still hungry for seeing some wildlife and so after my short hike there I ended up at PLP anyways. I decided to hike right through the snow along the tree line along the northeast side from 73rd Avenue. I'd hardly walked in 50 feet or so when I saw something small and brown scurry away not to far ahead to my right. I stopped immediately in my tracks as to not make any more noise. At first I thought it was a weasel because it was so small. But then I saw it again briefly and realized it was yet another Mink! This was quite a ways from the creek so I was quite surprised to see him way out here. On my last glimpse he'd darted behind a mound of snow supported by tall weeds underneath. I decided to go down on haunches and wait a while since he was SO very close. After 5 or more minutes I couldn't hold that position and stood up. Shortly after I saw a pink nose slowly rise up over a snowbank. Then a pair of eyes that looked directly at me. He was no more than 10 feet away. I stood there motionless taking a few photos but my camera was focusing on small weeds that were in between us. The mink eventually went back down as did I again. I tried moving to my left just a tad in order to clear the weeds that were blocking my view. Right after I did I saw him pop his head up again, this time even closer to me now at about 8 feet away. I was ready for him this time and clicked away on continuous mode. He fully stood up, arms dangling at his side and stared directly at me. I couldn't believe it. Though I didn't move I guarantee he knew I was there but didn't seem too threatened. For a moment he turned to look to the side but never really took one eye off me. After just a short while he disappeared again. I knew I'd gotten some decent shots but decided to wait another while just in case. But after staying as still as I had for this long, I was about frozen by this time and had to get up and move. I decided to walk in towards where he disappeared and found only a small opening in the grass. I couldn't even locate his tracks which stumped me for a while. Then I realized something –he was likely traveling underneath the snow all along, only popping up here and there for a look. I imagined the Mink might have had quite an elaborate system of roads underneath the snow and I hoped I hadn't crushed any of them. Though I've actually been even closer in proximity to them before, this was the first time we both knew how close we were!