Between the Blooming Times:
A Year in the Life of a Mink
I am born in the time, as many things are, when the trees are beginning to bloom again. I am part of a small litter, one of only three. We live with our mother in a den that she took over when it was left by a muskrat, on the edge of a river. I was born blind, so I do not learn this immediately. Our mother leaves us often to hunt. The older we get, the more we wish to venture outside of our den. Seven weeks after our birth, we are ready. We follow our mother out of the den and slip into the water. We swim behind her, watching the sun glint off of her shiny fur. She spots a fish and dives quickly, leaving us behind. My siblings and I dive after her to see, though not as quick or as deep. My sight is not as good below water, so it is hard for me to see her at her deepest depth. I do not see when she catches the fish, I only see that it is carried in her mouth when she returns to us.
It is the hot time now, and I am almost ready to leave my mother's den. I have begun to feel the desire to be away from my siblings, my mother. I know now that we are solitary creatures, that I am meant to live alone. When the hot season begins to fade away into a cooler season, I leave the den for the last time. I head south along the river, avoiding the areas that smell of what I instinctively know is the mark of other mink. I finally find a spot free from competition, an abandoned muskrat den like that one I was born in. It is in a good spot, close to the water, but with easy access into the trees behind the river. Before I go to sleep, I go outside, turn around and spray my musk around the entrance, to mark it as my own. I go inside and settle into my first day in my new den.
I settle into my new life alone well. I do not think on my mother or littermates. It feels natural for me to be on my own. When I go out to hunt in the nights, I can sometimes smell the telltale scent of another mink's den, and make sure to avoid that spot. One evening, a mink comes too near to my den and we fight, thrashing around and trying to bite each other, making loud, high noises as we do. Eventually, the other mink slips away from and dives into the river. I follow him into the water, swimming after him as fast as I can, but he gets away from me. I turn around and swim back to my den, knowing that I kept it safe.
As the weather gets cooler and cooler, I begin to venture into the trees more than the river to hunt, not wanting to go as far into the water to find fish. I race around under the trees, sending colorful leaves swirling in the air behind me. I find my first vole. It's an easy thing to catch and kill with one swift bite to the neck. I eat it where I killed it, in the cool shade of the trees. I do this more and more now, hunting animals in the woods, avoiding the increasingly colder water. When I find something bigger, like a rabbit, I bring it back to my den to eat it, not wanting to take the risk of some other mink or predator finding me and wanting to eat either what I have, or worse, me. Sometimes, I will climb up trees and steal eggs from nests when I know that the mother bird has gone. I have moved to a different den, one that a rabbit once made, further away from the water. The colder it gets, the more I go out in the daytime, to feel the warmth of the sun on my fur, and to find feathers and grass to line my den. My fur is getting thicker with each passing day.
The dark, cold season is here, and I do not leave my den anywhere near as often. Cold, white flakes fall from the sky and cover everything in a blanket. The river freezes over, a sheet of ice covering the water that I can slide across. I can no longer get to any fish at all. I go out into the woods as little as possible, searching for prey that I can carry back to my den that will feed me for several days. I leave tracks in the fluffy white stuff and try to hurry before a predator can follow them to me. One day I go to leave my den and find that I cannot. The white flakes have fallen so much that they block the entrance I am trying to leave. My den has two more entrances and they are all blocked. I try digging at the stuff keeping me inside, but it is so cold and wet that I cannot do it for to long. I settle into my den, glad that I still have part of a rabbit to eat. But I know that it will not last me long.
The whiteness does not melt as soon as I had expected it to, the way I had seen it do before. There must be much more of it, or it just keeps falling from the sky. I am getting hungrier and hungrier; the rabbit has been gone for several days now. I have gone days at a time without leaving my den and hunting, but this has been longer than any of those times. Each time I wake, I go to see if the entrances to my den are unblocked, but I do not try to dig at them anymore. I know that I must conserve my energy. Finally, the cold stuff melts! I push my way through the rest and go out into the woods. Almost everything has a thick covering of the flakes, but it is starting to disappear. Green shoots of grass are starting to poke out. I run around for a bit, just happy to be out of my dark den. It takes me a while to find prey. Most other animals are probably staying in their dens right now. I find a vole and eat it quickly before hunting for something larger. I finally find a rabbit that has ventured out. I take it back to my den to eat over a few days.
I am very happy when the blooming time returns, and I am able to go out of my den without having to walk on a cover of cold, white flakes. I run splashing into the river, diving after a fish. I can dive further than I ever saw my mother go. I find a fish and bring it onto the shore, where I devour it. When I'm done, I shiver, sending water flying. My fur is thick, but the water still has a chill left to it. I am heading off into the woods in search of something else to eat when I catch a scent on the wind. It is a mink, I know immediately, but not another male as I am used to smelling around this area. I follow the scent along the river, picking up speed as I go, excitement growing within me. When I find the female mink, we circle each other briefly before I tackle her, my thoughts on only one thing. It is our jobs to keep the species going.
I return to a den by the river again. I start going back into the water in search of food more often. Creatures are everywhere once again. I have no trouble finding food as I often did in the cold season. Birds chirp in the trees, frogs hop in the mud by the shore, fish dart past under the water. One time, another male mink comes too close to my territory and I fight him back. Another time, it's the other way around and I come too close to the territory of another mink and he fights me back. I mate with as many females as I can find. I swim in the river and dive deeper than ever. As time passes, it gets warmer and warmer. Baby mink start to venture out of their mother's dens. I watch from my side of the river as a mother carries her litter in her mouth one by one back to their den from the shore. Any of the babies could be mine; I have done my part to keep the mink thriving. I know that soon those babies will all be ready to set out on their own, as I did at the end of the hot season. But for now, it is the blooming season. I turn away from watching the mother and her litter and head back to my own den.