Tree Rat!

A lot of young birds have been seen in the garden in recent days with families of Blue Tit picking up grubs from the Wisteria, a Great Tit family (2 adults & 3 youngsters) feeding on the peanut feeders, a young Starling family was seen around the roof top too.

With all this activity, it has inevitably caught the attention of the local Sparrowhawk and a grey backed male whizzed low over the garden first thing this morning. His mate, the female repeated this aerial feet an hour later.

The local Green Woodpecker was also for a time perched on in one of our trees at the back calling but by the time I retrieved my camera it had buried itself deeper into the foliage of the opposite tree.

A Tree Rat, sorry Grey Squirrel, spent over an hour perched on the apex of our garage roof and performed nicely for the camera before I shot it (photographically)!

Grey squirrels are, in my opinion vermin and should be eradicated from this country.

They were originally introduced from America, their original country of origin.

They do untold damage to trees stripping the bark off mature trees, they take birds eggs (leading to the decline of woodland species where the Greys are prevalent) and they not only out compete our lovely native Red Squirrel but they have also forced out the Reds from many areas where they used to live. They also carry a virus which quickly kills off our native Reds.

To some people they make look nice and cuddly in our local parks but they have done untold damage to our native wildlife.

I fully support and endorse the recent comments made by Prince Charles about the problem of Grey Squirrels.