Saturday 30 July 2016

Red squirrel news

It is exactly a week since the red squirrel came to the garden.  After he had gone I put up a feeder filled with peanuts, monkey nuts and both shelled and whole hazelnuts.  Two days later I saw him on the feeder eating breakfast.




Then he ran onto the lawn and began collecting dried grass and carrying it up an oak tree.  I suspected he was building a nest or bivouac and began to hope he might stay around.




Later that day he was back for his tea.




Since then food has been taken from the feeder each day.  To save me from spending all day looking out of the window I put up a trail camera and this image is from yesterday.

This morning he turned up for breakfast at around 9.30 so he isn't an early riser.  He spent 40 minutes eating and it was interesting that he started with a whole hazelnut.  Perhaps it is good for his teeth.  Having eaten one he then chose shelled hazelnuts.  I can see I'm going to be buying a lot more.




The squirrel seems unconcerned by me standing at the open window 3m away.  He takes no notice of the noise of the camera but is very alert to alarms from the birds.  I have to be careful not to spook the pigeons while he is on the feeder.  It is real thrill having such a beautiful animal in the garden.

4 comments:

  1. This is just super Chris - fantastic news!

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  2. Beautiful photos which vividly depict the behaviour as well as the appearance of your lovely visitor. Wonderful to see these!

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  3. A follow-up. Sadly I haven't seen him since the morning of this post, a week ago now. It is interesting that a male red squirrel was seen at Big Waters nature reserve 24 hours later last Sunday morning, which is 2 miles away as the crow flies, although there are lots of roads and houses in between. See John Hall's blog http://howdonblogger.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/red-squirrel-at-big-waters.html for details.

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