I replenished the fatball and the sunflower seed feeders yesterday - within minutes the Squirrels arrived. They have to take the seeds out of tiny holes in the feeder so at least it slows them up a bit
... but here's one throwing the husk on the floor. Look carefully and you'll see my house reflected in his eye - flipping Tree Rats
the birds are much more genteel ... the Great Tits take one seed and sit in the tree holding it in their claws and gently pecking at it
One positive factor from the squirrel activity is that they do tip food onto the grass so the ground feeders benefit - the Blackbirds, Dunnocks and Chaffinches mainly
although the Chaffinch seems to have 'bitten off more than he can chew' here
I'm easily sidetracked as you can tell by all the photos of our garden visitors.
I'm pretty certain that once the commissions are finished I'll be drawing one or more of them - probably a squirrel as they are impossibly cute even though they're a pain - I certainly have hundreds of ref photos to choose from
I like it when you post local wildlife as it's fun to see the difference between what you have and what we have here in the US. Unfortunately, your squirrels are the same as ours!
ReplyDeletegrey squirrels were introduced to the uk Jan, and quickly started causing problems :/ you do still see red squirrels, but they are pretty rare :(
ReplyDeleteHere in Ontario we have a race of black squirrels. I understand they are actually a mutation of grey squirrels, but they look cuter, to me.
ReplyDeleteLovely pix. You do know how to use your camera Sue. I only have a very simple point and click and anyway, any wildlife activity is way too far away for me to take a picture of.
Jo - we've seen black squirrels here in Kent, UK. We visited a Zoo/Wild Animal Reserve and the black squirrels were running around - not in cages - they obviously had settled here.
ReplyDeleteI've since read that they can challenge the grey squirrels?
Not sure if that's a good thing or not .. it would be nice to see red squirrel numbers increasing again but maybe the blacks are even more vicious than the greys and will wipe out reds and greys?
They seem quite innocuous but then I'm not a squirrel LOL. I would like to see the reds making a comeback too.
ReplyDeleteDon't remember seeing squirrels at all when I lived in the UK. But then for many years, I wasn't much into wildlife, hubbies got me into birds etc. Both knew almost as much about English birds as Mike does.