NORTHUMBERLAND: The literature of our wildlife abounds with tales and records of the so-called mesmeric dances of stoats and weasels when after their prey. These macabre performances are usually believed to take place before some bird or beast which the stoat or weasel is eventually intent on killing. Rabbits, pheasants, and small birds are frequently said to be the predators’ eventual victims. One of the best accounts of one of these dances comes from the pen of John Guille Millais.

To his monumental work on British mammals Millais gives a graphic description of how he watched a weasel dance before an assembled audience of blackbirds, wrens, and tits. He was on his way home to Compton’s Brow in Sussex when he came upon the scene. The outcome of this sinister ballet he never knew, for suddenly all the birds in the weasel’s audience flew away, possibly disturbed by the presence of the human watcher? There are also innumerable records of both stoat and weasels performing in front of rabbits which seem to become paralysed before the mustelid kills them.

This past week I was the fortunate witness of a piece of natural history drama, the like of which I have never seen before and never expect to see again. I was in a fir wood near home when down the length of the long green ride I glimpsed the form of a roe deer doe. She was standing like some bronze statue staring intently down the ride. That she had not seen me I am sure and this I was able to confirm when, from behind the tree where I stood, I studied the animal carefully through my binoculars. Suddenly, quite close to the doe, and between her and me, I saw the quick movement of some creature.

At first I thought it was the head of a pheasant or a pecking blackbird. To my amazement it was the black tip of the tail of a stoat. The stoat now started to gyrate, spring, run in little circles, and generally perform in the manner of a dance macabre. But why in front of a roe deer doe who all the time appeared to be absorbed by the little carnivore’s queer goings-on? The end of the story is prosaic, for the deer simply walked out of the avenue of the green grass ride into the dense jungle of the regimented pine trees. The stoat too ceased its antics when it dived amongst the brambles but not, so far as I could see, in the direction of the departed doe.