A Collared Lemming burst from a thicket of grass and swam across a narrow finger in the lake which was filled to the brim with recent rains. Just as the little rodent disappeared in a patch of thick grass on the opposite side of the water, an Ermine popped out from where the lemming had just come, paused, looked around, appeared to sniff the air, then also swam the same course. I was scrambling with my camera hoping to capture something of the surprise sighting and managed to capture the above image just before the Ermine dove into the grass.

We didn’t often encounter either of these species during our years at The Lake, but there was hardly a walk after a fresh snowfall that we didn’t come across small paired tracks left by Ermines bounding through snow, so they appeared to be fairly abundant. Cool animals. I would love to have made friends with one the way Sam made friends with Baron in My Side of the Mountain… The closest I came was when one ran across the toe of my boot and into the entrance of our house as I opened the door one morning.