Sorry if you're seeing this again..I posted about this yesterday but it
hasn't appeared.

We had a red squirrel on and in the birdfeeder yesterday (no grey ones
here on Arran). The BF he was investigating contained a large lump of
suet and some black sunflower seeds; unluckily I had to go out so hadn't
time to see which he was after...does anyone know? Perhaps he hadn't
noticed several peanut feeders nearby :-)

Janet.

The message
from SusieThompson contains these words:


We get a couple of red squirrels on the bird table fairly regularly.
Aren't they something, and prodigious time wasters when you're supposed
to be doing something else. Mind you, they haven't been around since
we've had the snow. Are they hibernating or have they decamped over to
you?

I don't think they can be hibernating as we've seen them elsewhere on
the island during Nov and Dec.

We do get a lot of pheasants in the garden - what sort of damage can
they do to plants, etc? Do you know?

We had lots in the last garden and have a few here....the previous
owner left us a big tub of corn so that they wouldn't miss their daily
feeds! At the last place they sometimes scratched lawns, and as the
lawn had a lot of moss in it, made quite a bald patch in winter, but it
grew back in quickly in summer.They would also sometimes peck at the
first few daffodils or crocus then leave the rest alone.I've never had
them interfere with the veg beds.

To my mind the amount of "damage" pheasants do is really minimal, far
outweighed by the pleasure of watching such beautiful birds and
occasionally taming bold ones to eat from your hand.

Janet.

We get a couple of red squirrels on the bird table fairly regularly.
Aren't they something, and prodigious time wasters when you're supposed
to be doing something else. Mind you, they haven't been around since
we've had the snow. Are they hibernating or have they decamped over to
you?

Red Squirrels, unlike Greys, do not hibernate.

Dave

In message , Judith Lea
writes
?

We get an enormous number of pheasant and other game birds in our
garden. The damage they cause, is far outweighed by the pleasure they
give me. e.g. The pheasants lay their eggs in the strangest of places,
the greenhouse which has a hole in the lower glass where they can come
and go although I have seen some of their eggs laying in the vegetable
garden where predators have taken them.

They roll all over veggies and scrape out some sort of dust bowls! I
have a badger, lots of frogs and toads, a young deer, foxes, ducks,
hedgehogs, families of poussin type birds and even a dreadful ferret and
a wicked feral cat who are frequent visitors. I get lots of grey
squirrels and I love them despite their bad press and often feed them,
they are almost tame now. I consider myself privileged to watch their
comings and goings.

One morning I opened the sitting room curtains to find a hare sitting
about 5 feet outside the window, staring in at me. I don't know who was
more surprised! Another day when we were eating breakfast, a grey
heron strolled along the path just outside the window. The red
squirrels have reappeared today now that the snow has melted away. And
as for the pheasants - could they be the culprits who took a fancy to
the kale, which is growing by the path, just under the sitting room
window? Or, was it more likely the hare? Anyway, said kale has been
tucked up under old net curtains ever since I found the damage last
November. I haven't tried growing anything else here as the ground is
pretty horrendous and the property doesn't belong to us anyway.

There won't be any gardening to do until we move into our own home in
the Autumn. Then we will have hares, partridge and pheasants in the
field at the bottom of the garden - goodness knows what else will turn
up. The Arran Banner (the island newspaper) says there are usually grey
lag and white fronted geese in the Shiskine valley , which is where
we'll be living. I shall miss the red squirrels who don't, as far as I
know, live in that area of Arran. We'll have to work out what will and
won't grow and what sort of defences against the local wildlife after
the builders have finished and gone.
We're very fond of kale - it should be hardy enough to cope with most
things, shouldn't it?


--
Susie Thompson
SPAM BLOCK IN OPERATION! Replace "deadspam.com" with "arrandragons.co.uk" to
reply
by e-mail.

In article , SusieThompson
writes
We do get a lot of pheasants in the garden - what sort of damage can
they do to plants, etc? Do you know?

We get an enormous number of pheasant and other game birds in our
garden. The damage they cause, is far outweighed by the pleasure they
give me. e.g. The pheasants lay their eggs in the strangest of places,
the greenhouse which has a hole in the lower glass where they can come
and go although I have seen some of their eggs laying in the vegetable
garden where predators have taken them.

They roll all over veggies and scrape out some sort of dust bowls! I
have a badger, lots of frogs and toads, a young deer, foxes, ducks,
hedgehogs, families of poussin type birds and even a dreadful ferret and
a wicked feral cat who are frequent visitors. I get lots of grey
squirrels and I love them despite their bad press and often feed them,
they are almost tame now. I consider myself privileged to watch their
comings and goings.
--
Judith Lea

"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
...

Sorry if you're seeing this again..I posted about this yesterday
but it
hasn't appeared.

We had a red squirrel on and in the birdfeeder yesterday (no grey
ones
here on Arran). The BF he was investigating contained a large lump
of
suet and some black sunflower seeds; unluckily I had to go out so
hadn't
time to see which he was after...does anyone know? Perhaps he hadn't
noticed several peanut feeders nearby :-)

Janet.

Hi Janet,

That's really interesting. We have a lot of red squirrels here and
also put out loads of bird food including peanuts and black sunflower
seeds. I've never seen one of the squirrels anywhere near the bird
food and they are not shy! They just take all our hazelnuts and
walnuts instead. Hope life is good after the move.

Regards
Iris

In message , Janet Baraclough
writes

Sorry if you're seeing this again..I posted about this yesterday but it
hasn't appeared.

We had a red squirrel on and in the birdfeeder yesterday (no grey ones
here on Arran). The BF he was investigating contained a large lump of
suet and some black sunflower seeds; unluckily I had to go out so hadn't
time to see which he was after...does anyone know? Perhaps he hadn't
noticed several peanut feeders nearby :-)

Hello Janet

We get a couple of red squirrels on the bird table fairly regularly.
Aren't they something, and prodigious time wasters when you're supposed
to be doing something else. Mind you, they haven't been around since
we've had the snow. Are they hibernating or have they decamped over to
you? As far as I can make out, ours go for the peanuts first, but they
will eat black sunflower seed and some of the other grains that come in
the mix that we feed to the pheasants. We don't put suet out, so can't
comment on that, but they've ignored the coconut we hung up completely.
We do get a lot of pheasants in the garden - what sort of damage can
they do to plants, etc? Do you know?

--
Susie Thompson, Isle of Arran
SPAM BLOCK IN OPERATION! Replace "deadspam.com" with "arrandragons.co.uk" to
reply by e-mail.

"Dave P" wrote in message
...
We get a couple of red squirrels on the bird table fairly regularly.
Aren't they something, and prodigious time wasters when you're supposed
to be doing something else. Mind you, they haven't been around since
we've had the snow. Are they hibernating or have they decamped over to
you?

Red Squirrels, unlike Greys, do not hibernate.

But make sure they have something to eat.

The grey squirrels are, at present, in hibernation, but as it seems
to be another mild winter, hopefully most of them will die off, and
enable me to have a few of the walnuts I try to grow for myself!

Alan
--
Reply to alan(at)windsor-berks(dot)freeserve(dot)co(dot)uk

The message
from "K" contains these words:

"Alan Holmes" wrote in message
...
:
: "Dave P" wrote in message
: ...
: We get a couple of red squirrels on the bird table fairly
: regularly.
: Aren't they something, and prodigious time wasters when
: you're supposed : to be doing something else. Mind you,
: they haven't been around since we've had the snow. Are they
: hibernating or have they decamped over to you?
:
: Red Squirrels, unlike Greys, do not hibernate.

: But make sure they have something to eat.
:
: The grey squirrels are, at present, in hibernation, but as it seems
: to be another mild winter, hopefully most of them will die off, and
: enable me to have a few of the walnuts I try to grow for myself!

They are certainly not hibernating here - not too far from you in
Twickenham.

....and the Perth grey squirrels are pretty active,too!

--
AnneJ
ICQ #:- 119531282

"CK" wrote in message
...
I have to say that in my part of Somerset, grey squirrels don't seem to
have
hibernated for many years now.
We see them all through the winter.
Chris


They haven't hibernated here in Redditch (Worcs.) either, for years!!
--
Chrissie
http://www.thegardener.btinternet.co.uk

In article , Judith Lea
writes

Why did they end up in my garden and not in a warm
burrow?

Hares don't live in burrows and a fox or a cat probably got the parents.
Life in the wild is hard
Mind you, if they were rabbits I would have had a go at them myself if I
saw them eating my plants or digging them up!!!
--
Jane Ransom in Lancaster.
I won't respond to private emails that are on topic for urg
but if you need to email me for any other reason,
put jandg dot demon dot co dot uk where you see deadspam.com

In article , Anne Jackson
writes

They are certainly not hibernating here - not too far from you in
Twickenham.

...and the Perth grey squirrels are pretty active,too!

Our resident family of grey squirrels always remain active through
winter. They feed from bird feeders which are positioned safely from
our two cats. We like to watch their antics as they leap through our
trees, ignoring the envious gaze of the cats.

Maybe red squirrels would be more 'natural', but the local population of
those lovely creatures gave way to the ravages of intensive farming long
ago. We are just grateful that greys are able to be their replacements.
--
Alan & Joan Gould - North Lincs.

On Sat, 8 Feb 2003 19:28:15 +0000, Alan Gould
wrote:

Maybe red squirrels would be more 'natural', but the local population of
those lovely creatures gave way to the ravages of intensive farming long
ago. We are just grateful that greys are able to be their replacements.

Gray squirrels were deliberately introduced onto Vancouver Island
by a madman within the last twenty years or so. Now they are
everywhere, at least in the city.

We have a small native squirrel here with a rusty coat; unusually
for a squirrel, it is very quiet and secretive. In over 3 decades
of life here, I have seen one exactly four times! Regrettably,
the native squirrel is very territorial, and experts think that
the gray squirrels (not very territorial) will drive it out of a
lot of its range in time. It may be that that's why your British
red squirrels are scarce now - competition from the grays.


--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

in article , Alan Gould at
wrote on 9/2/03 5:58 am:

In article , Rodger Whitlock
writes

Regrettably,
the native squirrel is very territorial, and experts think that
the gray squirrels (not very territorial) will drive it out of a
lot of its range in time. It may be that that's why your British
red squirrels are scarce now - competition from the grays.

The competition is from humans. British red squirrels are scarce because
they are unable to thrive well in modern rural (and urban) conditions.
In this area they had become very scarce long before greys arrived.

Aren't they much pickier eaters, whereas the greys eat just about anything
that comes their way? I thought more than a lot of the problem with reds is
that their preferred diet is no longer widely available to them - whatever
that is?
Rodger, do you have the black squirrels on VI that I saw in Vancouver
itself? Beautiful!
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk

"TheGardener" wrote in message
...

"CK" wrote in message
...
I have to say that in my part of Somerset, grey squirrels don't seem to
have
hibernated for many years now.
We see them all through the winter.
Chris


They haven't hibernated here in Redditch (Worcs.) either, for years!!

Well there is no doubt that in the Windsor area they
do hibernate, and the mild winter last year certainly
reduced the numbers.

Alan
--
Reply to alan(at)windsor-berks(dot)freeserve(dot)co(dot)uk