Unforgettable encounters with Mammals: Part I
Most birdwatchers enjoy seeing mammals, but the problem with mammals is that they tend to be harder to spot than birds. Only in Africa is it really easy to see a great diversity. I remember the guide on my first Kenyan birding safari saying that “birding groups always see more mammals than those who come just to see animals. They always spend longer in the bush, and see everything of moving, so it’s no wonder they see more.” During my 21-day Kenyan safaris, we thought we found about 600 species of birds and about 60 mammals, both impressive totals. One of my most memorable excursions was a night-time game drive in Kenya when we saw an aardvark and a zorilla, so we ticked off both the first mammal on the field guide’s index, and the last. We also saw a leopard, but A to Z stood out. Incidentally, encounters with both aardvarks and zorillas are rare – lions and leopards are easier to spot.
In contrast to East Africa, encounters with mammals while birding in Europe are relatively rare. In 2023, I tried to keep a year’s list of mammal encounters: the list barely exceeded 20 species, while it was complicated by looking at bats and voles whose names I could not identify. As someone who likes to name everything I see, I find this frustrating.
Over the years, however, I have enjoyed a number of memorable mammal sightings in Europe. One of the most exciting was an encounter with an Iberian lynx while hiking in Spain’s Coto Doñana. At that time (1968) lynx sightings in Doñana were very rare because the animals were shy: I was very lucky to have this encounter. (I remember seeing my first Little Bustards and Pin-tailed Sandgrouse on the same walk on the edge of the Marismas.) It would be more than 50 years before I saw another lynx, not in Doñana, but in the Sierra Morena mountains to the north, which now is the best place to see these handsome cats in the wild.
I have also encountered stray cats several times, in both France and Greece. These cats are quite numerous around Lake Kerkini in Northern Greece, and I have encountered them there several times, including the individual above who allowed himself to be photographed. In recent years, golden jackals have been doing well around the lake, but they are shy and mostly nocturnal, and I only encountered one during the day. Stay out after dark, however, and there’s a good chance you’ll hear them, as they are noisy creatures. I wonder how they get along with wild cats?
Golden jackals breed throughout Eastern Europe, and continue to spread west. A few years ago I was surprised to see one while birding in Matsalu National Park in Estonia. It was supposed to be one of the first to arrive in Estonia, but I find that they are now well established there.
I have not been lucky enough to see a wolf anywhere in Northern Europe, although last year I found new tracks in Estonia – their prints are amazingly large. The only wolf I saw was in Spain, in December, and in a very large range. I watched them at dusk, through a telescope, from a ridge overlooking the place they came from. It was an exciting experience, albeit a very cold one, as winter in Castile and León can be very cold. On another trip, this time to Slovakia, I heard wolves howling, an amazing thorn sound. At the time we were searching, without success, for White-backed Woodpeckers.
I may not have seen many wolves, but I have seen many foxes (or what I should call red foxes). They are common and widespread here in the UK, although quite difficult where I live as numbers are controlled by shooting. (Decreasing fox numbers certainly benefits our local ground-nesting birds, especially Stone Curlews and Gray Partridges.) I have also seen foxes in many other countries. The Finnish fox shown here was photographed on a late October afternoon, north of the Arctic Circle. My shutter speed was slow, so these aren’t the sharpest of photos. This northern fox actually looks red, unlike the pale, sand-colored animals I saw in Georgia in 2019 (below).
I have never been to Svalbard, so I have not noticed polar bears, but I have seen brown bears on several occasions in both Romania and Bulgaria. The first one I saw was on a garbage tip not far from the town of Brasov in Transylvania. The mountains here have a strong population of these amazing carnivores, and they find the garbage tips irresistible. However, watching bears on the tips is not really fun, and I have had more enjoyable sightings from assigned bear hides, both in Transylvania and Bulgaria.
There are several bear hides where sightings are almost guaranteed, as the area in front of the hide is ideal for spotting bears (on top) come every night. (They especially like chocolate!) I’ve also spent hours sitting in non-stop shelters in Bulgaria where you’re lucky if you see a bear or not. On one occasion we lived in the shelter at 6:30 in the evening. We were told we had to keep quiet, so no one said a word for over three hours – the only bear we saw appeared at 9.30, just as it was getting dark. However, we did see some interesting birds, including a Nutcracker (below), a life for one of my companions.
Otters may be widespread in Europe, but are often elusive and difficult to see. They disappeared from most English waterways 50 years ago as a result of poisoning from persistent organochlorine chemicals, but in recent years they have made a remarkable comeback, and are now widespread. now. Where they are not persecuted they can be brave, and can be seen in the sun. The individual (below) was photographed on the river Little Ouse, the border between the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk, at 10.30 in the morning. It seemed indifferent to me and my spaniel who were watching it from a path by the river.
The otter is, of course, a member of the weasel family. (Why the weasel should be the head of the family doesn’t really make sense. Why not the stoat family or the badger family?) I see both weasels and stoats occasionally, but never regularly, and I’ve never shot one picture any of them satisfactorily. The same goes for the badger, an animal that has become more numerous and widespread in Britain over the past 50 years. Sightings of potted badgers on the side of the road are more common than seeing live individuals, unless you make the effort to watch a set.
The North American mink is another member of the weasel family, and is an unwanted invasive species here in Britain. The mink is a voracious predator, and is responsible for a significant decline in water levels in the UK. They will also kill any waterfowl they can get their hands on, from Kingfishers to Mallards. I’m glad to say it’s been a while since I last saw one: there was a determined effort to exterminate them from East Anglia, the part of England where I live, and it was largely successful. A few years ago I watched a mink and an otter feeding near each other on the Scottish island of Mull. Interestingly, they totally ignored each other.
Pine martens are making something of a comeback in the UK, helped by reintroductions, and are now established in the New Forest, in the southern county of Hampshire. I have never seen an English pine marten, but I once watched a red squirrel hunt in the Bialowieza Forest in Poland. The hunted squirrel ended up climbing an outer branch of a pine tree, where it was relatively safe because the branch was not big enough to support the weight of the marten.
We have no stone martens in Britain, and I have seen very few on the Continent. The most memorable was walking along the side of a French country road on a February morning. There was a hard frost and the temperature was several degrees below zero: the marten didn’t look happy, and I can’t say I blamed him.
Next week David will look at more mammal encounters, but herbivores instead of carnivores.
