Red and Grey

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gamyrick

Member
May 31, 2015
290
14
Tennessee
I often hear our cousins across-the-pond express their concerns about grey squirrels and how they contribute to deforestation, the predation and resulting decline of woodland birds and of red squirrels. My Dad lives in New Hampshire and during a recent visit I noticed that among the grey squirrels were red squirrels. I also noticed that the 2 red squirrels dominated his yard. They chattered incessantly and ran off the grey squirrels when they ventured too close. I did some checking and there is no closed season or limit on red squirrels in New Hampshire or Maine. It seems that their numbers are growing faster than the grey squirrel. I can assure all those across-the-pond that Maine and New Hampshire have lots of forest, woodland birds and red squirrels. You should take-heart, if red and grey can live together and thrive in New England, they can do the same in England.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8448000/8448807.stm
 
I'm really upset....

...not really. American reds are a different species to our native european red squirrels.

The american grey squirrels are a bit bigger and carry squirrel pox to which our reds have no immunity. There are only a few pockets of reds left.

Last week a grey erroneously decided to sit by my backstop in my garden, just as I finished zeroing my .177 HW100TK (in a carbine bullpup stock, it's now a beauty).
 
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We have Red squirrels, usually see them in the pines. The old timers around here when I was a kid called them "fairy diddles" , something like that. They would tell you to kill em any time you seen them , as they would bite the testicles off male gray squirrels. Not sure this is true, but I have seen Gray squirrels running from those little red devils. Now the red squirrels I am talking about are much smaller than a Gray & not to be confused with the big reddish colored fox squirrel.
 
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You're right about the old timer's. Pop told me the same thing. They're about half the size of a red or a hair smaller & were indeed called " Fairy Diddles". Dang lil suckers are quick as chain blue lightenin'! And I have seen them chasing grays & reds up trees to bit them in the HELLO & chasing them off! Pop always told me to kill'em when spotted. They are quite rare though. Their color is more of a sable red to me? But dang, those lil devils are fast!
 
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