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The Red Squirrel is a lot smaller than the Grey breed, in size as well as body mass, the Red Squirrel won’t stand a chance in battle with a Grey Squirrel. Squirrels are very active and they spend most their time in the trees. They do come down to the ground to forage for insects and nuts that fall from the trees, they are excelent climbers and acrobats. A squirrel will make a nest known as a drey, they make this out of sticks and use fork branches to hold its structure, just as a bird would. These nests are usually 30 cm in diameter and lined with leaves and mosses, if there is a hole in the tree trunk they will also use it too.

The Red Squirrel is a shy animal and they pretty much stay on their own, they are not to keen on sharing their food and will chase an intruder away from his patch or its hord. They spend as much as 80% of their lives foraging and stashing little food stashes in holes in the ground and holes in trees for when the weather gets bad and the food runs out. They have excelent memories and remember most of their stashing places, but because their feeding grounds overlap each other they end up stumbling upon other squirrels food and eat it. When this happens it throws the memory off in the squirrels head, its like they have it number coded in their heads, when they come across an empty stash they get confused and usually end up losing half of their food supply for the winter.

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Description

The Red Squirrel is usually 24 cm in length and they have a tail that is usually 20 cm long and can weigh up to 350g. They use their long tail to balance themselves while jumping through the air or turning their bodies easily when jumping from tree to tree. The Red Squirrel can vary in colour depending on the location and the family breed, they range from black to red. Their coats also vary on the time of the year, in the warmer weather they will look like they are sun bleeched and almost grey. The under colour of the red squirrel is always white no matter what the colour they have on their backs. They have a Winter and a Summer coat, the winter coat is the thickest and they tend to lose this in the spring time. In the winter months they have been known to huddle together in the one drey to keep warm. The Red Squirrel have long claws that enable it to climb almost any thing even your house wall. These claws aid in the decent of the squirrel climbing down the trees and giving it the ability to climb downwards, their strong back legs and their slightly webbed feet allow the squirrel to swim too.

Reproduction of the Red Squirrel

Mating of these squirrels happens twice a year, in late Winter during February and March and in the Summer between June and July. Females in these times of the year go into heat and they give off a scent telling the males that they are ready for mating. Males will chase the female until the dominant male suceeds and mats with her. Females are sexually active after their second year and they usually have three or four young but can have as many as six. Females are pregnant for up to 6 weeks and the young are born deaf, blind and bald, they dont have a complete fur coat until 20 days later a week after this their ears open and then their eyes a week or so later. The female squirrel raises the young by her self and only 50% of these young survive the winter months, and then half that amount for the next winter. The Red Squirrel can live up to 10 years in captivity and up to 7 in the wild, but they have been given the average of 3-4 in the wild because of the enviornment they live in and the death rate of the young.

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Ecology of the Red Squirrel

The Red Squirrel is a protected species in most parts of Europe and Asia but they are not as bad as the Irish and English Red Squirrel, this is mostly to do with the introduction of the Grey Squirrel that came from Northern America. As little as 140,000 are left in these areas and 85% of these are in Scotland, but we as humans are to blame too due to land expansion. There was an order of a mass cull of the Grey Squirrel in 2006 to prevent the numbers of the Red Squirrel dropping below the endangered warning level.

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