Polecat weasels way into garden

A startled pensioner had the shock of her life when she looked out the window of her Black Country home and saw an unexpected visitor in her garden - a polecat.

Instead of the usual robins, blackbirds and squirrels, retired teacher Margaret Horne from Wolverhampton was astonished to see a polecat drinking from her pond.

At first, the 73-year-old thought the animal was a badger or a ferret and only realised the significance of her sighting after researching it on the internet.

"At first I thought it looked like a badger or a weasel, but when I looked with my binoculars I realised it was neither," she said today.

Mrs Horne, who lives in Woodthorne Road, Tettenhall, with her retired GP husband Michael and son Phil, said she was keen to hear from anyone else who had seen the animal."I would have taken a picture but it disappeared. All my friends are fascinated because they've never heard of a polecat living in Wolverhampton.

"I would definitely be interested in finding out if anyone else has spotted this around Tettenhall or anywhere else," said Mrs Horne.

The polecat is related to badgers, weasels and ferrets and was common throughout much of Britain until being hunted almost to extinction by gamekeepers in Victorian times.

By 1915 they were hanging on for survival in mid-Wales before they were able to make a gradual recovery.

A survey by the Vincent Wildlife Trust in the mid-1990s found they had recolonised much of Wales and had even crossed the border to the Midlands and were advancing east.

Polecats can live for up to five years, they measure up to 45cms in length and can weight as much as 2kg. They have long cylindrical bodies with short legs, blunt faces, small, rounded ears and short, furry tails.

Julie Staines, who is from Dudley Zoo's education department, said that Mrs Horne's spot could indeed have been a polecat.

"Surveys have found that polecats are moving to this area and it's possible what the lady saw could be a polecat as they are making a comeback," she said. "Although they look like ferrets, they are bigger and are more aggressive. You certainly wouldn't want to get bitten by one," she added.

By Jon Wood