American marten on a log in the Adirondack Mountains of NY. Taken by trail camera.

It has been a long time since I’ve posted here, but now that I have a bit more time on my hands, I thought I’d revive this blog and share some of the material I have accumulated over the past year or two. The American marten (Martes americana), not to be confused with the pine marten (Martes martes) of Europe, a closely related but distinct species, is a member of the weasel family. As such, it has a long body and short legs, and usually moves in a 2×2 or 3×4 loping gait.

Its large, snowshoe-like feet allow it to move with minimal sinking over the deep, soft snow of the northern areas and high elevations it occupies. It lives in forest with old growth characteristics – that is, a mature forest that has a lot of large cavity trees and snags, and large diameter logs. That type of forest structure provides many hiding places for the marten’s prey, and for the marten itself.

This species is a generalist that hunts a variety of small mammals, birds, insects, etc., and will fill its belly with fruit when in season and if necessary. Winter rest sites tend to be at ground level (under a log, root ball, rock pile, etc.) and warm weather rest sites are usually above ground (on branches, in witches’ brooms, and in tree cavities). Breeding dens are usually in tree cavities.

So, the marten’s habits are much like those of its cousin the fisher, but the marten is better adapted to deep snow, and it’s more arboreal.

Check out this video of a marten in NY. I wish the base of the stump had been within the camera’s view so we could see exactly what the animal was doing. It remained in this spot for a few days, during which time it sometimes carried leaves to the base of the stump, as you can see in the video. I think it had a food cache there – perhaps a snowshoe hare. It likely would have consumed smaller prey all at once. Another possibility is that it was placing bedding material at a rest site, but I don’t think martens have been known to do that. What do you think?