…or making sure the bills get paid, there’s always plenty to be getting on with. Often it feels like there’s too much to do! We are a large team, but we cover vast areas up and down the country – anywhere where Scotland’s core red squirrel populations are threatened by the spread of grey squirrels. Our staff are always running… […]
…to welcoming more members in the coming months and years to help us so that red squirrels can continue to thrive in their rightful home. If you would like to get involved with red squirrel conservation within the East Wigtownshire area please get in touch through the SSRS Network Directory, where you can explore network groups across South Scotland.… […]
…they were slow to visit the feeder boxes, seeming to prefer to keep exposure to the wet and cold to a minimum. As a result, some monitoring sites only registered the presence of squirrels in the last fortnight of the six-week surveys. Even so, for surveys in project areas north of the Central Belt, initial results suggest red squirrels are… […]
…about making whatever they can from it – whether it’s a garden chair, a bird table, or a squirrel feeder box. Once all the boxes are made up we go and collect them and then they are distributed far and wide to either our own team or our small army of volunteers across the north east. Each spring, these feeder… […]
…monitoring work. The newly formed volunteer network is running additional monitoring in conjunction with the spring survey to get a closer idea of what’s going on in their area to the south and west of Hawick. Grey squirrels have been spreading down the river valleys towards Craik forest and the excellent population of red squirrels that live there. The new… […]
…suitable habitat and bait it with various tempting treats. When squirrels visit they have to lift the lid to access the food. In doing so they brush against a small sticky pad inside the lid. Here is a feeder box showing the sticky tab inside the lid. This box has been visited by a squirrel, and hair coats the sticky… […]
…very alarming figure! However, our survey isn’t designed to count squirrel numbers, it’s designed to help us understand how red and grey squirrel distribution is changing over time. In the report, 59 was quoted as the number of locations in the south of Scotland that were surveyed in both 2017 and 2018, and could therefore be compared. The figure isn’t… […]
…regards to releasing Rusty back into the wild – they were clear he was never to be a pet or to be kept in captivity. They wanted to make sure he would be ready to live free. Over the course of their time with Rusty he grew bigger and stronger, and soon it was time for them to hand Rusty… […]
…Raymond Leinster Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels aims to secure the long-term future of red squirrels in Scotland by supporting volunteers and land managers in three key areas to work to save the species. In Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire, where grey squirrel populations have been significantly reduced in the last eight years, the project will continue to work towards making… […]
…mice will do the same. One of the key ways to tell the difference is the neatness of the stalk that’s left behind. Red squirrels tend to be a bit less precise than their smaller woodland neighbours. They’re more likely to get stuck in there, leaving a raggedy stalk behind. There’s something special about holding one of these cones in… […]
