Red Squirrel in Cobh

katana1

Hi, My wife and I saw a Red Squirrel in the large oak trees adjacent to our house. We looked up online and saw that these little fellows are fairly rare in Ireland .I live on the eastern side of the tay road near the "Glebe" guest house.
There are a lot of deciduous trees along this road so hopefully they may be more of them.
I thought I would mention the sighting in case someone was interested .
I tried to take photos but the mixture of a poor camera /dull day and the height the squirrel was in the trees made a half decent pic' impossible..
I will post the best of the pic's if anyone is interested:)
I walk the trails in the local woods when I can and I have never seen one before. If anyone has seen one in their area or knows how far they travel from their home for food etc'--please reply.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.:)

F.R.

I suggest you report your sighting to biodiversity Ireland and the Irish squirrel project.

here and here.

mathepac

katana1 wrote: »

... We looked up online and saw that these little fellows are fairly rare in Ireland ...

This is the native Irish red which is being displaced and predated by the non-native grey, introduced into Longford by some genius in the early 20th century.

But we have a solution with the re-introduction of the shy but beautiful pine-marten which dines voraciously on greys.

katana1

Thanks for the info' It was my first time seeing one --I live near fota and I am always on the lookout for them --my local woods (Marlogue woods)Would be a very likely place to see them but none there so far.
I consider myself very lucky to have seen it.

Huntthe

mathepac wrote: »

This is the native Irish red which is being displaced and predated by the non-native grey, introduced into Longford by some genius in the early 20th century.

But we have a solution with the re-introduction of the shy but beautiful pine-marten which dines voraciously on greys.

That is good news. I thought I saw a pinemartin in Wicklow near Lough Dan about a year ago.I had seem them on tele before. Than I heard they where not in Wicklow so I thought It must have been a mink, but having looked at pics,I think he was more like a pinemartin .

katana1

We are keeping a daily lookout for our little furry friend everyday.We are now scanning the trees with binoculars so hopefully we will see it again...In our garden and the field behind us we have seen.. rabbits (common I know)...Pheasants( We tried in vain to stop the farmer allowing shooting)...hares,we had two of them around last year...Hedgehogs, Great for driving our dog nuts at 3am lol...Fox's.Frogs..in the front garden under the leaves..
A strange insect called a "Humming bird moth" May Bugs .they gave us a real fright first night they thumped off the patio door...We also have Moore hens ( I think --must ask my wife on that one) and our neighbours and ourselves have seen a sparrow hawk on occasions.
There are so many bird species around also ..we attract them to the garden with the nuts and seed.
Also in a stream behind us we have seen a heron with an eel in its mouth but the eel was putting up a fierce battle.
I am delighted to hear about the pine marten -- Is there anyone I could contact about introducing it down this part of the country?
We both love nature and these are amazing sights to us after living in town for so many years.

F.R.

mathepac wrote: »

This is the native Irish red which is being displaced and predated by the non-native grey, introduced into Longford by some genius in the early 20th century.

But we have a solution with the re-introduction of the shy but beautiful pine-marten which dines voraciously on greys.

Greys do not predate red squirrels, they have a competitive advantage over reds in deciduous woodland and reds breed less when greys are in the vicinity.

katana1 wrote: »

We are keeping a daily lookout for our little furry friend everyday.We are now scanning the trees with binoculars so hopefully we will see it again...In our garden and the field behind us we have seen.. rabbits (common I know)...Pheasants( We tried in vain to stop the farmer allowing shooting)...hares,we had two of them around last year...Hedgehogs, Great for driving our dog nuts at 3am lol...Fox's.Frogs..in the front garden under the leaves..
A strange insect called a "Humming bird moth" May Bugs .they gave us a real fright first night they thumped off the patio door...We also have Moore hens ( I think --must ask my wife on that one) and our neighbours and ourselves have seen a sparrow hawk on occasions.
There are so many bird species around also ..we attract them to the garden with the nuts and seed.
Also in a stream behind us we have seen a heron with an eel in its mouth but the eel was putting up a fierce battle.
I am delighted to hear about the pine marten -- Is there anyone I could contact about introducing it down this part of the country?
We both love nature and these are amazing sights to us after living in town for so many years.

Pine martens are not actually being reintroduced anywhere, they are naturally recolonising woodlands where they previously existed and in the process it appears that grey squirrel numbers are declining.

Grey squirrels have not reached Cobh yet but they have been reported near Lismore. The reason you don't see many reds is that they spend about 80% of their time high in trees and rarely come to the ground. You might see a bit more of them in winter when there are no leaves on the trees. Keep an eye out for the drey, their nest, looks like a collection of leaves and twigs.