Land /Water Wildlife 2024

Red Squirrels, Brownsea Island.

 

Just watched “our” roe doe eating the fresh crooks of ferns in the garden. She has a very varied diet and certainly gets her 5-a-day in. The other day it was camellia flowers which we hadn’t seen her eat before.

 

I wasn't familiar with that area at all @strongylodon , so it's lovely to see the reds having a stronghold. Were they actively introduced there, or are they long term natives ?

I hope someone doesn't bring in the other ones. They're wreaking havoc up here in the reds' most heavily populated parts

 

@fairygirl Long term natives, no Greys, As Brownsea Island is in the middle of Poole harbour, which is huge, they are very well protected.

 

Yes - that's a great way to keep them predator free. Sorry for my ignorance, but was Brownsea originally part of the mainland though? I'm intrigued as to how they originally appeared there.

At one time, reds were able to travel hundreds of miles by 'tree' and never needed to be on the ground. How sad that it's becoming so rare to see them. I see them when I'm hillwalking, and was lucky enough to see one en route to what became my 100th Munro. He has pride of place in a frame in the house

 

I rarely see a red Squirrel here and have seen only two in the seven years I've lived in my current home. I'm more likely to see Pine Martens but have never managed to get a shot of one.

 

They were hoping that encouraging more pine martens would help get a hold on the advance of the greys, due to their habit and predation of them, but they admitted last year that it just wasn't working. The greys were even quicker at adapting/breeding.

 

I haven't seen any grey squirrels here @fairygirl.

 

Maybe the pine martens are helping a little bit where you are @Sheal.
I didn't see any of the three when I was up there, but we weren't in the area the whole time.

 

Brownsea Island was the site of the first "Boy Scout" camp organised by Robert Baden-Powell.

 

Had a close encounter of the hissing kind today (is this the right thread? Can't see one for May). While toddling down the slope, there was a flurry of movement in the grass, then some loud hissing, then rapid movement in my big Cypress....a Western Whip snake. He slid up the tree and coiled himself round a branch so he could have a good hiss at me in safety Obviously been watching the Jungle Book He was a lot bigger than the one I saw sunbathing on the pool bank the other day, and a lot more lively.

 

Pine martens are nocturnal whereas squirrels are diurnal. But pine martens are very agile, they could more easily predate greys in their dreys at night.

In theory anyway, there's probably easier prey for them though. Goshawks should be a good predator, but for some reason they're quite restricted here.

You get pine martens and greys co-existing in North America too, what I'd love to know is what North American predator that we don't have seems to control greys because it isn't obvious.

 

I wonder if the general habitat is also a factor over there @Erigeron.

Goshawks aren't very common in many parts of Scotland though, and the area which has the bulk of the red squirrels, doesn't have any. Southern Scotland has both reds and goshawks, so perhaps that helps there.

 

Seen a few recently but the first one when I had a camera.
Just a little un.