On our way to the village this morning, walking through dark, dank woodland, something moving at the bottom of the Scots pine in the left foreground of this picture caught my eye. On closer inspection it turned out to be....
....one of the small, introduced population of red squirrels. Even from close up it was very difficult to work out what it was doing. At times....
....it seemed to be burrowing into the soil, as if to bury or excavate a nut, at others....
....it curled up, shaking, staying still for a few moments before....
....moving around and then, at one point, rolling down the slope, recovering, and....
....climbing back to the tree and curling up again. At no point did it seem to notice me.
I assumed it was sick - but the squirrel looked to me to be too healthy to be suffering from one of the diseases, such as squirrel pox, that are killing red squirrels.
That it wasn't diseased was borne out by its disappearance by the time I passed the pine on my way home, some half an hour later.
There is one other explanation for its behaviour. Shortly before we found it, we met a dog walker, with two dogs, who would have passed the site a few minutes before. Could one of the dogs have chased and caught it on the ground?
Happily, a few minutes later as I approached Squirrel Alley, I spotted another, very healthy red squirrel.
On our way to the village this morning, walking through dark, dank woodland, something moving at the bottom of the Scots pine in the left foreground of this picture caught my eye. On closer inspection it turned out to be....
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