THERE is a weasel living in my garden, which I’ve nicknamed Two Spots after the markings you can see under his chin when he stretches.

This male is all that is left of a litter of seven kits that were born here last summer. I spent much of the year watching and photographing this young weasel family and they became so accustomed to my presence they would scamper right past me as I sat on my studio steps with my camera.

I even built them a dry stone wall to play in and added a reflection pool so that my photographs, and final paintings, benefitted from an attractive backdrop.

It all began when I spotted Two Spot’s mother in the garden last spring. Small enough to slink through a wedding ring and furiously fast; weasels are notoriously difficult to study in the wild. In fact, all that most people have ever seen of a weasel is of it flashing across the road before disappearing into the undergrowth.

As soon as I noticed the female in my garden, I set about making sure she stayed here. I left food out for her, built specially designed feeding boxes – big enough for a weasel to get into but too small for a stoat – and eventually made her a nesting chamber.

The project, which involved 12 CCTV cameras hidden in the garden sending live images to my studio, led to my filming the first ever video of wild weasel kits being nursed in their nest.

My footage, which made it on to national TV, proved a rare insight into how this tiny mammal.

I had followed this female weasel from the moment she first mated with a male - in a brutal tryst that gave me an idea why so many people think of weasels as vicious - to the time her kits took their first ginger steps into the outside world.

I was even privileged enough to look in on the day that the adult female took the kits out on their first hunting expedition. By this time there were only five kits left from the original seven, four males and one female - a mini-fuzzy version of her mother. I suspect a stoat, which also lived in the garden, had got the other two.

They were just 48 days old and they behaved impeccably, following their mother nose to tail through the undergrowth as if they were all one animal. They shadowed her in this way, responding in unison to each of her chittering calls to attention, until they all reached an area of long meadow grass where I could no longer see them.

Very shortly afterwards, I heard a squealing distress call. I ran over and parted the tall grasses. There was a weasel kit wrestling a young rat. They were rolling and writhing about. One moment the weasel seemed to be winning, the next moment the rat had the upper hand. The rat tried biting the weasel’s face.

The weasel wrapped its long body around the rat to deliver a killer bite to the back of its neck; they spun as they tussled. I dashed to the house to get my camera. By the time I got back the weasel was winning the war and the rat’s squeals had subdued.

The weasel had the rat by the throat and was viciously biting into it. It was making sure that rat was not just playing dead. It definitely was dead but it was still flicking and twitching. The weasel had been so caught up in the fight, that it hadn’t noticed me standing right over it filming.

It dashed off into long grasses to eat its well-earned meal and shortly afterwards I heard another young rat being caught by one of the other weasels.

It was a harsh initiation. Female rats are among the most dangerous prey to attempt. And these weasels didn’t even need the food since I had left plenty for this growing family in the feeding box.

Clearly you have to be tough to survive as a weasel. The adult female disappeared later in the year, again I suspect the same stoat that took the kits earlier, and there is now only Two Spots left. I imagine the other males will have naturally dispersed to find new territories.

I’m keeping up my feeding regime in the hope that I can attract a female here for Two Spots to mate with – I’d like a new generation of weasel models to paint this year.

But Valentine’s Day has been and gone and there’s still no sign of a girlfriend for Two Spots. However, weasels are aggressive animals and the competition for territory might mean Two Spots is unlikely to share this lucrative area with a mate.

I hope he does, there is still so much to learn about these elusive creatures.