"A pine marten? The only one I ever saw was when a brown paper parcel arrived at the Evening Press office many years ago," said the old friend. "Inside was the dead body of a furry animal." The parcel was addressed to Ashton Freeman, who then wrote a daily, continuing story of Irish wildlife, and he immediately knew that it was a pine marten. And, likely, a pine marten was incorporated into his running adventure story called Wild Wisdom. Eamon de Buitlear describes the pine marten, one of the mustelid family, as our "most elusive land mammal" and the number of people outside, say, forestry workers and the like, who have seen one, is probably small enough.
Eamon describes the pine marten as having deep chocolate-brown fur, with a distinctive cream bib, but the pale-coloured ears were probably the most striking feature in the poor light between trees when he came across this specimen. It is not small. The Collins Field Guide to Mammals gives its head and body length as from 36 to 56 cms and its tail as 17 to 28 cms. The weight can be over two kilos. Another source says it is about a metre in length all over. It has a hefty range of diet, from worms, beetles and birds' eggs to, in the autumn, berries, nuts and crab apples. It is also said to like mice and shrews. It is surprising, Eamon says, that pine martens are not more widespread in Ireland - especially, you would think, with the growth of forestry. In Britain, mind you, where they were thought to be extinct, at least in England and Wales, they are, according to a report in The Sunday Telegraph, "secretly thriving". Maybe it was just that nobody was looking for them.
David Cabot writes in his Ireland book that they have significantly increased in the Burren area, which is now their main focus of distribution. He points out that their front limbs are extremely muscular, good for climbing trees, crossing boulder country or travelling fast over ground. They live in holes in trees or rock crevices and three cubs are born. They mostly work on the ground, and at night. Arthur Stringer of The Experienced Huntsman, who calls them martern, hunted them relentlessly. Tough animals: he saw one leap from the top of a tree, at least 50 feet, land on ice and immediately make off. Not once, "but very often". These two eyes have seen them in Clare and, once, a single marten crossing a road in front of the car near Blessington, Co Wicklow.