Red squirrel in the garden

Just had a red squirrel in the garden yesterday. It’s the second one in the last few weeks. We live on the outskirts of Aberdeen and until they started trapping the greys a few years ago that is all we ever saw. Nice to see the reds are finally taking over the habitat.

Excellent. They were very around here but in event years greys have appeared and taken over, they’re trying to trap yeah greys which means the odd red is coming back. Not as common as they were though.

Shouldnt they be hibernating?

Don’t squirrels bury acorns and stuff for the winter? I don’t think they properly hibernate.

Superb.
I was sat in the van up the lakes taking a breather from work one last summer, and a red came hopping down the dry stone wall. made my day.

seen a few reds around the river Don (BOD) area . We’ve not had a winter as such so they’re still fairly active

Shouldnt they be hibernating?

No, they don’t hibernate.

Carry leprosy – watch out!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/10/red-squirrels-carrying-medieval-strain-of-human-leprosy-as-peopl/

There are attempts being made to re-introduce pine martens in forest areas in England and Wales, it seems that they will happily go after greys, which haven’t co-existed with them like reds have, and the greys will leave, allowing reds to re-occupy the forests and woods.

Carry leprosy – watch out!

He’s a long way from Dorset.

Worth reporting it here. https://scottishsquirrels.org.uk/

Pine martens are awesums never seen one in the wild though. Would of thought they would eat reds and greys. Can’t imagine they would be overly fussy with their prey, they will pretty much go for the throat of any small mammal.

So the theory is greys spend more time on the ground than reds therefore are preyed upon by pine martens more often than reds. Well every day is a school day and all that, never knew that till now.

Reintroduction of the Pine Marten sounds like a great idea and I hope it works. The wife and I went searching for Red Squirrels when we visited the Cairngorms. Spent hours hiking around and didn’t see one. Got back to the car park and there was one sat on the fence. Beautiful animals.

Clearly we English are not sending enough of our immigrant squirrels up your way.

When I was a kid a grey squirrel was completely grey. Now they are going two tone.

The holiday cottage we visit on the West Coast of Scotland had a pine Marten near by, there were no squirrels and only a few song birds. This year we seen evidence of red squirrels and more song birds, the pine Marten had died so other creatures moved back.

I live in what is, basically, Red Squirrel metropolis. It’s still great to see them though.

Pine Marten? Pretty difficult to find in the wild – unless you know where to look 🙂

Evening visitor by Colin Cadden[/url], on Flickr

When I was a kid a grey squirrel was completely grey. Now they are going two tone.

It’s either a mod revival or due to malnutrition.

http://www.rcsanimalcare.com/Detail_Two_Toned.htm

Found one.

Pine Martin by Lee Collis[/url], on Flickr

Pine Martens are a pain in the arse. They love to chew on rubber hoses in cars. £1200 bloody quid it cost to get my car fixed as one decided to use my cars hoses as lunch.

Never seen a pine martin in the wild,but do get a few red squirrels visiting our garden + surrounds. There was hell on one morning when one squirrel decided to wind up the chickens, what a blo*dy racket they made!

I was chased by a Pine Marten at Relentless in Fort William one year. Well, not chased as such, but as I was riding along a fireroad in the dark with no one else around it ran alongside on the verge for about 10 metres before getting the hell out of there.

I love them, they’re clearly mad animals but very entertaining.

We stay at a lodge near Ballater and get red squirrels on the balcony. I can’t think of a trip north of Perth that I’ve been on for the last five years where I’ve not seen a red at least once.

Pine martens are awesums never seen one in the wild though. Would of thought they would eat reds and greys. Can’t imagine they would be overly fussy with their prey, they will pretty much go for the throat of any small mammal.

True but the PM can follow Greys on to the same sort of branches due to similar weights but they can’t follow the reds so easily as they are much much lighter thus harder to catch.

In terms or squirrel top trumps how many points do I get for an albino? 🙂

Spotted scurrying across the top of a fence in my friends back garden on New Years Day.

We used to see an albino grey squirrel in Colinton area of Edinburgh one summer going back 5 years or so. Haven’t seen it since then.

Got this one in North Yorkshire, near Hawes. (Snaizeholme)

Must’ve seen about 10 others as well.

I’m lucky to have seen 2 Pine Martens in the wild but only got a shot of 1, just along the road from Lochaline & the other by the shore of Loch Shiel.