A Scurry of Squirrels

Sassy's Back!!!

This is the best news as I noted the absence of the local squirrel populace way back in June [see "Bird, Bath & Beyond"]. The confident, classy Sassy re-materialised at the end of July, only to vanish again in August...appearing again at the end of the month and this time with a young squirrel in tow...

[Caution - cuteness overload ahead]

D'awwww

And then there were two...

Sibling snuffles in the sunshine

Then three... [although impossible to capture on film]. Trying to photograph young squirrels is a challenge - as they move so quickly. They've an annoying tendency to move the second after you've adjusted your camera's focus/zoom...

I assumed that all three were Sassy's offspring. However, one morning an extremely harassed looking female squirrel appeared at the back door - with the crazy eyes of someone who has been up all night trying to contol rowdy offspring high on joie de vivre. It's also telling in that when Sassy encounter one of the youngsters, she is much more at ease with them [see below]. She appears to try not to directly engage with the youngster, but when it acts out - e.g. jumping the line to the peanut feeder, she doesn't hesitate to rebuff it. Whereas with the twins [the other two come out together], she actively shuns them and chases them away.

Some parental control required

It's sometimes difficult to distinguish youngsters from adults; but as with most animals, the giveaways are around the head and the feet, which tend to a bigger size. They've often got a sort of 'not-quite-filled-out' look to their body, and the fur coat is typically clean and blemish free - although this depends on how many scuffles they've already got into or which precious plant they've been digging up...

Sassy [back] and offspring [front]

I do love the fluffiness of young squirrels and how generally curious they are about the world. They seem to love the piece of cut stump in the back garden, lots of opportunities for peek-a-boo! I normally put out some birdseed on top, although this year I've been putting out a mix of sunflower hearts and dried mealworms and this have proved to be a big hit!

Tried to think of a suitable tree pun here, but it had me stumped! [*insert eye roll here*]

Confirming that the bird feeders are only squirrel-proof when there's no food in them

Climbing practice

This years' brood have cottoned on to the peanut feeder pretty early on - although there is one individual who continues to attempt to open the feeder by biting down onto the lid, rather than lifting the lid up. The population influx meant we were getting through the peanuts at speed - so I decided to forage for 'local' nuts. This led to collecting just shy of 1kg of conkers [horse chestnuts] and 600g of acorns when we were away in Perthshire, earlier this month. I kept about 10 of each to put in the fridge [pre-planting] and doled out the rest to the mob.

This is what 1.5kg of nuts looks like...

Not sure how well this style of out-sourcing is going to work longer term for tree planting. When there's youngsters around there's a lot of nut logistics: squirrel A buries nut, squirrel B finds nut and either eats it or reburies it somewhere else, squirrel A cannot find nut so digs up squirrel C's nut - and so on. Anyway, we got through the 1.5kg in about a week. Seriously considering starting a Crowdfunder campaign. Could call it something hilarious like "Pay Me Peanuts" or some such!