by Englishman 20 Replies latest jw friends
Look. It was several of these:
Yup! RED squirrels by the dozen at Center Parcs, Cumbria, where HL and I + 15 family members spent the last 4 days as guests of her 2 brothers. I'll post pics ASAP. They came right up to the patio doors of our chalet scrounging food. None of us had even seen a red squirrel before, so we were all intrigued.
As for Center Parcs, well, A super place, great company, lot's of good wine, excellent beer and wildlife to dream about.
Back to reality!
Englishman.
I'd say that you are more like, tickled red. How sweet you are, Englishman.
Too cute!!
Too cute! I saw a BBC program many years ago about the "bandits of the back garden" or some such thing, and the many innovative ways the English try to keep their bird feeders away from the squirrels. Personally, I love squirrels and look forward to the time when the trees in our new addition are large enough to be attractive to them.
More pics! More pics!
Nina
The thing is, Nina, that we have zillions of grey squirrels in our parks and woods. Back in 1840, there were only the smaller red squirrels in England, then, some bright spark decided to go to North America and introduce their native grey squirrel to the UK. The grey thrived, and ousted it's smaller red cousin, because the red can only survive by eating vast quantities of ripe pine nuts whilst the grey will thrive on virtually anything, including UNripe nuts.
This is how the red has been ousted:
Virtually all of the reds are now only to be found in Scotland and Ireland. Shame.
Here's some more info:
Englishman.
Englishman, you're going to hate me for this.... Here in North America, at least in the North-East where I live, it is said that some foolish english guy brought red squirrels from England, and they are now outnumbering the local grey squirrels. The red ones have taken over the grey's habitat and food.
My son shoots the red ones with his BB gun and feed them to the neigbor's boa constrictor.... I must say that I love watching the critters, but they are so numerous, and they chew holes into the attic and make a mess....
The chipmunks are also very prolific and destroy gardens.... Boa constrictor food....
Let me also add that I feed the red squirrels along with a rare grey one and dozens of different birds all winter at my bird feeder, and choice seeds, a mixture of peanuts, sunfower seeds, millet, thistles, etc... hunting is not allowed in the winter
Ah, yes, yet another example of humans thinking they can mess with the ecological balance with impunity! In St. Croix there are no snakes. Not one. That's because some dim bulb way back in the sugar cane plantation days thought it was a brilliant idea to import mongooses from India to combat the cane rat problem. Alas, they didn't realize that the cane rats party at night, and the mongooses are daytime creatures. So the hungry little mongooses (who probably still haven't seen a cane rat) started eating snakes. And, since they didn't have any predators they multiplied like rabbits and can be seen all over the island.
Nina
Strange, we used to have these running through our gardens in the West Midlands and running up and down the branches of the trees. The local cemetaries where over run with them. Seems the grey Squirrles are now running the cemetaries instead.
Brummie
Awwwwwwwwwwww!
How strange that they are rare in England, I never knew that. They are quite common here, both red and grey's.
Eman, please don't hate me, but we hunt them here. Good eats.......................
Them's good eatin'
