Well, we eat rabbits and hares - why shouldn't we bat squirrels? There's quite a to do in the English media just now about the decline in red squirrel. Much more attractive, it is said, than the grey. But the grey is lovely, too. Its tail is wonderfully bushy, and in some cases, seen up close has reddish highlight. Could they be hybridising?
Get this clear, first. The red squirrel is protected. You may not shoot or trap. The grey is unprotected. And it is the grey that a London game shop, according to the Times of London, sells for £1.50 each. They are described in taste as something between chicken and rabbit. Best after October, when they have fattened up for the winter. Just enough meat on each for one person, apparently.
The general idea is that the grey is driving out the red. James Fairley doesn't go for that in An Irish Beast Book. The reds do fluctuate, and have done so for centuries. In the 17th century, we know from import levies, that they were here in numbers, then seemed to decline. But, he tells us, since 1815 they increased and by 1910 were to be found in all of the 32 counties.
The greys were introduced about a century ago, both to Ireland and Britain.
A startled reader of the English Field wrote (1909) to say that what he had taken for a rat near Hampton court Bridge on the Thames, turned out to be a grey squirrel. And the editor wrote that half a dozen had been let out a mile from the sighting place, but this was the first word to reach him. The date of introduction was 1890. The first Irish arrival, says Fairley, was in 1911 (`sad to state').
Red squirrels live largely on the produce of conifers, though they also inhabit mixed woods. The greys are eaters of acorns, beach nuts and other deciduous fare. They are great fans of the peanuts hung out for birds, and can gnaw through tough wire to get them in plenty. They are roughly twice the weight of the reds and likewise attractive and agile.
Jack Whaley at Bloomsbury, Kells, always loses some strawberries to them. This year they've descended on his broad beans. He thinks they've now moved on to a wild cherry tree which doesn't matter so much. Very greedy crowd, he says, but not aggressive.