Image of American mink

Description:

I saw a medium-sized brown weasel carrying prey (small rodent) in its mouth as it went from the far side of the stream, up to the trail, over the water control structure, and disappeared into the marsh. It moved pretty quickly and I was unable to get a picture. I looked around at the marsh for a while, but it had completed disappeared. I went back to pick up my scope, only to see it reappear from the marsh and retrace its steps in the other direction, this time without any prey in its mouth. It disappeared into the wooded area between the path and river. I got a couple of lousy out of focus pictures that prove it was there, but are nothing to look at. In the longer viewing the second time, it felt small (12-15 inches long) which had me thinking maybe it was a weasel rather than a mink. On studying reference books back home, I'm pretty sure that it was a mink, probably female. It was definitely not a river otter. It was medium brown without a pale belly, and a longish tail. The dark belly rules out both short tailed and long tailed weasels, and the slim appearance rules out fisher and otter. The snout was too long and pointed for otter too. The size was within range for mink, but on the small side, which is why I think it was female. Given how quickly it got rid of the prey animal, I'm guessing that it may be feeding young in a den nearby. Either that or stashing it for its own later use.