Right: Mount Grace Priory, Yorkshire (in the care of English Heritage)
Top: through the arch
Lower left: even the pheasants are looking for stoat holes ... or rabbits! (click on photo to enlarge)
Lower right: are there any stoat prints in the mud?
'Slowly the moon takes her brush, and drips
midnight tips on two stoat-like tails.'
Last couplet of 'Mount Grace Priory: heads and tails'
© Caroline Gill 2008
Poem published in 'Tips' (ed. Wendy Webb)
Issue 68 (September/October 2008).
Early birds listening to the 'Today Programme' on the BBC before 7am this morning will have heard the report about the resident stoat population at Mount Grace. The stoats are predicting a cold winter: they have turned white for Christmas!
Read the full story in the Darlington and Stockton Times.
- BBC feature on the Mount Grace stoats (2003)
- Mount Grace on the English Heritage site
- Mammal Society Fact Sheet on Stoats
1 comment:
Magical lines Caroline.
And thanks for a link to an interesting story. Wildlife is much better at predicting these things than we are.
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