We have an old country house in the arse end of Leitrim. Whenever we are up there I leave out left-over foods and scraps which are always taken by an animal. I always thought it was a fox but was pleased to see this guy the other day. He’s trying to get to the bird feeder we have hanging outside the window.
It’s quite rare to see pine martens but I heard that in the midlands, pine martens and red squirrel populations are on the increase because pine matrens have no natural predators and red squirrels naturally know how to avoid pine martins which would be one of their predators.
Apparently you don’t see many grey squirrels in the midlands because they are not native and don’t know how to avoid pine martens.
As you can imagine, rats and mice are a problem out in the country so having a pine marten arounds helps.
https://v.redd.it/mp47vgavm2fg1
Posted by FrankLucker
17 Comments
Wow, very cool!
Very cool OP, thanks for posting. Never seen a pine marten in real life, but when I hear about them always think of how they’ve helped with the red/grey squirrel issue.
Oh! You should think about sending this into the Springwatch/Winterwatch team!
Big Martin or little Martin?
What colour are your walls? They look great!
Haha whoops
So it turns out they’re currently asking for the public to report pine marten sightings!
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2026/0121/1554335-squirrels-pine-martins/ (2 days ago)
This is the link for you to actually register the sighting, if you’re interested!
All-Ireland Squirrel and Pine Marten Survey | CEDaR Online Recording https://www2.habitas.org.uk/records/uw-squirrel-monitoring
Cool
This is a rare occurrence
Brilliant
They’re bigger than I thought! But very cool thanks for sharing!
Be mindful that they can attack dogs
Interesting fact about grey vs red squirrels – the greys are larger and heavier than the reds, which means they can’t go as far out onto the limb of a tree. This means they can’t get out of reach of the pine marten as easily, and so the little reds are better equipped against a predator that they evolved with.
How many attempts did the the meatslinky make?
Great to see them making a comeback.
Be good to see them control the invasive mink population.He/She looks healthy too.
Wow what an amazing species to see! You are lucky most people go their whole lives not seeing one. Do make sure you report the sighting someone else posted the link!
I saw one in the Netherlands once when I was on a cycle path in the woods, it was scrambling up a tree, no doubt looking for bird nests. They’re really cool.
Class, love seeing them. The secretive little bastards.
Guess he wants to be a house marten.
Ill get my coat.