Wild American Mink

Wild American mink posing at low tide

I often saw wild mink where I used to live on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, Canada. They would run along the boulders searching for food on the shore of the bay in Pender Harbour at low tide. If they heard my camera clicking as I took photographs they would usually stop dead in their tracks and look around with curiosity for the source of the sound. That’s what happened with the above picture.

I’ve lived on Vancouver Island for almost three years and I’ve never seen a mink here…until today. As I was returning from my morning walk with my husband we saw something at the edge of the road, trying to cross safely. We couldn’t quite make out what it was because it wasn’t too close. But then we saw it run into the culvert and I recognized what it was…a mink!

I stood by the culvert, realizing that it would either pop its head out or possibly it would exit on the other end. I trained my iPhone on the closest end of the culvert and — lucky me — it appeared. Here is the short video I managed to capture of this young mink…

American Mink video

I’ll share some other photographs I’ve taken of mink at low tide.

Curious American mink

Next is a photograph of a mother mink that had just caught a fish in the ocean. She paused between the boulders strewn with bull kelp, checking me out, before she dashed by me in a blur and fed her babies who were in a nest nearby, under a dock. I could hear the babies squealing with delight at the prize fish.

Mother mink with fish

And here is a photograph of a mink swimming in the bay. I sometimes watched them swim from one shore to another.

Mink swimming in the ocean

I’ll be on the lookout for the new mink in our neighborhood!