Fisher ?

[Axeman]

Soooo....couldn't sleep...got up...went to kitchen with cravings...I put on outdoor floodlight to take a peek at who might be feeding under my feeders at night...expecting rabbits and skunks...saw strange dark animal, fairly large...couldn't make it out...so I opened the door and it slunk off...it was far too slender to be a groundhog...plus figure they're still holed up...just from movement (slunk off pushing through snow) and fact it went to a tree and climbed up makes me think some kind of weasel so I googled fisher...make sense for a fisher to be feeding under my feeder ? It was definitely feeding. I know the red squirrels tunnel through the snow and I have watched ermine track them through the tunnels but this animal wasn't digging. It definitely wasn't a skunk or a raccoon.

[lovemypt]

hard to tell without picture...possibly a dark raccoon?   I do not know where you are for southern Ontario but we do not have Fishers down this far ,very rare, even Algonquin area is really too far south. Fishers are also BIG, like Raccoon size...  I might of thought a male mink as they get big but I have never heard  or saw a mink ever climb a tree ( weasels don't climb trees either and are small, you would probably think it was a rat first)

sorry I would rule out Fisher ..unless you live near Northbay

[JW Mills]

My guess would be mink if you are reasonably close to water.
Mink do climb trees. I first spotted this fellow about 30 ft up.
 

[lovemypt]

My guess would be mink if you are reasonably close to water.
Mink do climb trees. I first spotted this fellow about 30 ft

Interesting shot Zed, didn't say they couldn't , just haven't ever saw one do that before......maybe there was an osprey nest up there with a fish in it :lol:

[KP]

I would not be surprised if the animal was a Fisher or an American Marten.  There are areas in Southern Ontario that have Fisher populations.  There are American Martens in the northern part of the Bruce Peninsula.  How much did the animal weigh about? How long was the animal about? Did the animal have round ears or pointy ears? In fact, the Oak Ridges Moraine has Fishers, as well as the Orillia area.   Algonquin Provincial Park has a lot of American Martens.

[Axeman]

There is a significant size difference between a fisher and mink...this animal was large.

We do have rivers nearby so we do see mink regularly. There was also a mink farm in town many years ago. The owner went bankrupt and local lre says he released his stock.

Neat shot of mink climbing tree...I have never seen that.

[Axeman]

I should add that I live in Bruce Grey

[Bill & Jaye]

I saw this thread when it started and just have to tell you that today, while driving a back road near Elora, I saw an animal that looked to be the same as pictured here, running on some ice on a creek.  I could not stop as I had to follow somoene.
Wish I could have stopped though.

[Reuven_M]

There are fishers in the Bruce Peninsula, but not sure if they would eat birdseed, martens will. You probably saw one of these 2 species.