Little 'Red'

The Feisty Red Squirrel Bell7 by Earl Plato

Wanna fight? My diminutive red squirrels at the family farm seemed always ready for a fracas. Territorial? You bet. Whenever the neighbour’s larger grey squirrels dared venture onto our property, what happened? The ‘reds’ would be there fiercely defending their territory. During our time at the farm we never saw the ‘reds’ lose a battle. Amazing for such a small guy. What do you know about our red squirrels? One thing for sure - the red squirrel is smaller in size than the grey and black squirrels. To me our red squirrels had a scraggly long tail and appeared much smaller than our more flesh- filled greys across the road. Research tells me that the red squirrel is slightly smaller than our Eastern grey/black squirrels. I tend to disagree based on my observations at our Sherkston farm.
Many of us have fed peanuts and other nuts to grey squirrels in parks. As far as I know red squirrels don’t do this. As a tree squirrel they have sharp, curved claws and sharp teeth. They bite and scratch. Not a very friendly mammal. We had lots of trees that bore seeds that served as their main food.
Longevity? Research again the lifespan of the red squirrel is on the average of three years. We were on the family farm for five years and I believed hat our pair of ‘reds’ were one and the same. Further research says that individuals may reach 7 years of age.
If you have red squirrels note their active period - at the farm it was early morning and in the late afternoon and evening. In the afternoon they avoided the heat of the day as they often rested in their two small globular nests high in the maples.
Interesting note: In an article I wrote years ago about the ‘red’. I verified through the web research this: “ The red squirrel is protected collects mushrooms and dries them in trees” Source: www.redsquirrels.info
I love field mushrooms and these little guys harvested my mushrooms in the back fields of the farm! No. I never shot any. To each his own, eh.
Check my Google blog: Nature calls - for my nature articles.