2009 was a good year for wildlife in my garden. Not only did we have a bumper crop of sparrows (used to see only the occasional two or maybe three, but now gangs of ten or more crowd noisily around the fat balls) and three baby magpies (which still visit occasionally), but the squirrel I used to see once a week or so found a mate and had some babies. One of the babies decided to stick around, as did one adult - don't know what happened to the rest, but I'd like to believe they're alive and well somewhere.

I'd bought a squirrel feeder a while back (a glass tube with a hinged, metal lid - lift the lid and enjoy the lovely peanuts inside), but it didn't get much - if any - action. Recently though I noticed the level of peaunuts going down inside, so started topping it up regularly, and keeping an eye out for my furry friends.

After careful examination of the photographic evidence, I've come to the conclusion that the adult (easily identifiable by the much longer tail) is a female, and the young one (shorter tail & more red-looking fur) is a boy - check out photographs 17 and 18 in the Young Grey Squirrel series to see for yourself (you do need to look carefully, as the poor little fella's not too well endowed!).

Curiously the young squirrel is a dab hand at getting the nuts out of the feeder, while the adult hasn't got the hang of it at all. Recently got a huge sack of monkey nuts, and delight in watching the little things running all round the garden finding and burying them, whilst the pigeons follow them trying to dig the nuts back up.

I was surprised that the squirrels don't seem to interact at all, just ignore each other if they're in the garden at the same time. Today, however, there was a development - the young male started chasing the older female (presumably his mother) off whenever he saw her! Cheeky little begger...I don't know, the youth of today, tsk tsk!


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