Eurasian Red Squirrel
Sciurus vulgaris
About
The red squirrel is the only squirrel species native to Britain. Known for its orange-red fur, its colour can actually vary widely. In the colder months they have large tufts above their ears. They have a large bushy tail that is almost as long as their body. This helps the squirrel to balance and steer when jumping and running along branches.
Red squirrels rely on trees for food, with their diet mainly made up of tree-seeds and nuts. They also eat fungi, fresh leaf and flower shoots, flowers and fruits of some shrubs and trees, bark and sap and rarely even birds' eggs and insects. In autumn, squirrels will bury seeds and nuts, ready to be eaten in winter when food is scarce.
Red squirrels make spherical nests known as dreys out of twigs in a branch-fork, about 30 cm in diameter. They are usually at least six meters above the ground and are lined with moss, leaves, and other soft materials. They build multiple dreys and move between them on consecutive nights, it is thought this helps avoid predation and provides backups in case of damage
Red squirrels do not hibernate. During the winter, however, they may remain within their nest for several days during severe weather.
Before mating, males chase females through the trees and females will often mate with more than one partner. Up to two litters a year per female are possible, each litter with up to six young. They are looked after by the female alone and are born blind and deaf. They begin foraging for their own food after around 10 weeks.
Red squirrels that survive their first winter have a life expectancy of 3 years and may reach 7 years of age.
Conservation status
Red squirrels have undergone one of the most drastic declines of all UK mammals, largely due to the introduction of non-native grey squirrels in the early 20th century. The larger greys can outcompete reds and they also carry the squirrelpox virus, which they are immune to, but which is fatal to reds.
Red squirrels are also occasionally preyed upon by pine martens, but red squirrels and pine martens have coexisted naturally in Britain and across Europe for millennia, so red squirrel populations can easily withstand this level of predation. In fact the presence of pine martins where both red and grey squirrels occur can benefit the red squirrel as they cause a decline of grey squirrels.
The red squirrel is protected in most of Europe. Listed as endangered on the UK Red List and of least concern on the IUCN Red List.
The Drey
drey – a squirrel’s nest; also their family unit
In the fork of a fir tree, the red squirrel weaves a dome to birth her kittens in.
With moss, leaves, feathers from a grouse, she insulates it.
Curled together, she will watch some of her kittens wake to the world;
she will feel the last breath of another.
But just now, she considers the breeding drey.
Its precariousness, its hope.
***
Unseeing, unhearing, the kitten’s wobbling limbs spiral,
searching for the softness of his mother.
Alone, he waits for her; his siblings safe in a new drey.
Too young to hear the danger his mother has heard
– the baying jabber of the chainsaw, the goshawk’s staccato screech –
and yet his body knows it.
His nose burrows into the breeding drey’s wall,
he inhales the wet earthiness of moss and twigs.
Suddenly, the vibration of skittering footsteps,
a hot mouth grips his still newborn-pink neck.
He is home.
Sculpture
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