A brush with a bushy tail has turned my family into red squirrel fanatics

Since first spotting the wild visitors last December, my parents’ garden has become something of a red squirrel hotspot.

By Megan Kenyon

Our first sighting was on a wet day last December. Christmas Eve, in fact. While gathered around the sink at my parents’ home in Sedbergh, south Cumbria, mucking in with the washing-up from lunch, my family and I were greeted by an unexpected visitor. An intrepid red squirrel had begun to gnaw away at the contents of our bird feeder, hanging elegantly by its back legs from the gutter that wraps around our slate roof.

As we squawked with excitement and pulled out our phones to take photos, the squirrel continued to industriously finish its meal. It remained unperturbed by the slightly fanatical humans peering at it through the kitchen window and gently flicked its tail as it sprung from the roof and darted away. My parents are lucky that in their corner of rural, northern England, red squirrel sightings, though rare, are not an anomaly. Along with Dorset and Northumberland, Cumbria is one of very few places you can still see the splendid Sciurus vulgaris in the wild.

Native to the British Isles, red squirrels thrive in the lush woodland for which the Cumbrian Lake District is well known. Indeed, their survival depends on it. Over hundreds of years, the slow destruction of England’s ancient forests, coupled with the introduction of the now near-ubiquitous grey squirrel, has led to the decline of these graceful creatures. There are now only an estimated 287,000 red squirrels left in Britain, compared to 2.7 million greys.

First imported into the UK from North America in the Victorian era, grey squirrels have multiplied across the UK. This has had devastating consequences for the native reds. Not only do the greys carry squirrel pox, a virus which is usually deadly to reds, they are larger in stature, can outcompete red squirrels and have a more resilient gut microbiome that enables them to consume a more varied diet, which can include tree bark.

The reason my parents now frequently receive such visitors is largely down to their neighbours, Jen and Mark. After spotting our new bushy-tailed resident, Jen and Mark became more actively involved in their own conservation efforts and are now the leaders of the Sedbergh Red Squirrel Group, which helps to protect and maintain the red squirrel population in the wider area. On a recent trip home, Mark told me they have ambitions to expand their reach to Kirkby Lonsdale, a neighbouring town that sits astride the Lancashire-Cumbria border. The group runs events and offers advice to local farmers and landowners looking to make their holdings more hospitable to red squirrels.

Since our first sighting, my parents’ garden has become something of a red squirrel hotspot. They have put out squirrel feeders, filled with peanuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts and sunflower seeds. The small wildlife pond that my dad has established in the corner of our back garden is now a bathing place for our red visitor. One morning, on one of my regular trips north, I see it preening itself by the edge of the water, slickly dipping its paws into the pond and rubbing its elegant eyes and wispish ears. Bottom raised in the air, it flicks its tail proudly from side to side as it takes a morning dip. My cat looks on, bemused.

By early summer, it is clear that the efforts of the Sedbergh Red Squirrel Group are starting to come good. A text from my mum at the end of June bears news of a recent arrival: a baby, otherwise known as a kit. A video shows the pair scampering around the garden, tripping and tumbling over each other as they forage for food, leaving peanut shells strewn in their wake. The kit looks tentative and hesitant as it follows the older squirrel, learning how to survive as one of the UK’s most threatened mammals. The pair slip under the garden fence, disappearing towards the woodland behind my parents’ house. Thanks to the arrival of our endangered friends, my own forays into the surrounding trees will now be far more frequent.