Williamson's Weekly Nature Notes November 12 2008

If you look at the cape as worn by Queen Elizabeth I 400 years ago, you can clearly see the black tails of the 200-odd stoats that went into its making. The stoats had changed their coats for the winter and become ermine, of course.

Only pure white ermine skins were required for this expensive luxury and show of power. Parti-coloured stoats, like many of those found in Sussex in winters gone by, were of no use. So the ermine had to be trapped over northern Europe and Scandin-avia.

Many were supplied from as far away as America and Asia if the climate was cold enough.

Experiments were made by one of the Rothschild family, always interested as they were in the scientific side of nature, to see whether stoats kept in captivity in sub-zero conditions could be induced to turn white in England. They did only partly so during the pelage change in autumn.

They were more likely to change to white the following year. All, that is, except the tail, which remained black in winter and summer.

That black tip can also tell you the difference between a stoat and a weasel. The weasel is smaller and has no black tip at all, nor does it turn white. I have seen ermine in Sussex but not for 30 years.

Back in the 1960s, two or three were always seen usually on the tops of the Downs. Now the winters are warmer the pelage change may only be half and half, with patches of white scattered haphazardly over the body as they are on Friesian cattle.

The odd thing abut this change to white is that it may spoil the stoat's chance of catching prey, especially rabbits.

Like foxes, stoats 'charm' their prey by pretending to play. They tumble over, dance on hind legs, roll across the ground, all the while getting closer to the unsuspecting bunny.

Once or twice I have seen this and the dance routine fair makes the jaw drop. It does mean that the stoat has to be in full view on stage but white hides the stoat from threats such as buzzard and eagle and gives good camouflage while creeping up on that foolish rabbit too.