Which is the most exuberant performer on the various nut-holders put out for the birds? These containers include not only several of the normal bought types, but a couple of big ones adapted from air filters from a diesel engine. No doubt about it - the grey squirrel is the supreme acrobat. The busy birds don't let themselves be disturbed by these intruders who keep on coming, though their reward is not great. For, only when they can chew through a weak point in one of the devices can they ever get a sizeable part of a nut, whereas the birds, with their beaks, get at least a reasonable mouthful at each peck (None of the holders are of string network.)
The squirrels provide amusement when startled - for example, by someone rapping on the window or the dog being released and barking - for they climb up the branches of the big hawthorns on which the devices are hung and spring from there onto a tree across the paths. The bough rides up and down. Lovely circus act. (They will soon be back.)
Greys only, no red squirrels. Whether they drive red squirrels out or not is still argued. They climb upside down, they hand upside down, they eye you boldly through the window. This arises from reading the views of readers who wrote to Michael and Ethna Viney in their splendid (and splendidly produced) Irish Times book: A Wildlife Narrative.
One correspondent is very emphatic in the red versus grey argument. "Since the arrival of the grey squirrels in this area eighteen months ago, the red squirrels both in Mount Juliet and in my new farm at Morelands, have completely disappeared. The woods are swarming with the greys. They have driven out or killed all the reds. They have also sadly diminished most of the small bird life. They are, of course, tree rats and should be treated as vermin not as cuddly pets."
They have an advantage, British research, brings out. Greys can live in mixed forests and eat acorns while the reds cannot because of the tannin. Greys can (and do in the experience of this writer) eat hazel nuts, a staple of the red, before they are ripe and thus deprive the reds. The same research suggests that the greys may have introduced a virus, which biologists have found is killing reds, while the greys are immune. A running debate.