Red Squirrel Photos From Brownsea Island

Having just spent a fantastic week in Brownsea Castle (flora and fauna blog here) I decided that I would do a blog of the stay and list the flora and fauna seen. I decided that I would do two specific gallery style pages just to feature all the Red Squirrel and Sika Deer shots that I was lucky enough to get.

The Red squirrels were seen mostly in the morning and could often be seen as dark shapes in the foliage or the noise of debris dropping from the trees betrayed their presence. The five best sightings are below with notes were relevant. Google also did a good, if rather speedy, picture sequence showing the bark collection here.

This industrious female was spotted on a Sweet Chestnut tree near the church gathering bark to presumably refresh bedding in a drey. The Squirrel had a very smooth action for pulling the bark away and I guess it's no coincidence that Sweet Chestnut bark is good for buffing into tinder.

This is a 'picture video' that was generated by Google which I rather like and shows the long inner bark lengths being removed.

The only shots of a squirrel on a feeder and the only evening ones. All of these were taken on an evening walk around the nature reserve on the  North East part of the island (the entrance is near the Castle and the National Trust jetty). I was only about twenty feet away in the end.

Almost certainly the squirrel featured in the first extended series of pictures as it is in pretty much the same spot and is gathering bark.

 A squirrel posing on the ground just long enough to be snapped before shooting up a nearby tree and again, pausing long enough for this nice silhouette shot. This is not far from the Eastern corner of the castle grounds.

Finally, the above three shots were taken half way down the South East side of the island. There are two squirrels and the top shot has captured one of them in full flight.