Pine Marten

Seeing a new species is always such an exciting and contented moment for me, so I wrote a poem for the first pine marten I saw in the wild!

The home ranges of Pine Marten are in the northern regions of North America, as well as the far western tip of the Pacific Northwest, above to the Alaskan ice grounds and south to the Mexican soils. They are quite rare to see in the winter, active only about 5 hours a day and then going into a torpor state to conserve energy and lower their metabolism. All the more special because in -20 degrees whether or storms (most observed in Alaska) above ground activity was almost none, instead they stay in the trees, or in dens of their subnivean tunnels of ice and snow. It was near this temperature when I saw it, and storming hard. On average they travel 1-3 kms a day, dependent on many ecological, physiological and prey factors. They eat voles, deer mice, and snowshoe hares, and berries.