Squirrel

A grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) photographed in the reserve by Cheryl Cronnie.

At this time of year, the reserve’s female grey squirrels are either pregnant with their second litter of the season or busy feeding that second litter of kits every three or four hours. Her maternity nest is high in the trees, built against the main trunk, home to anywhere between two and nine babies.

All images take in the reserve by Cheryl Cronnie

With such a demand on her body at a time when her winter caches of last year’s acorns are finished, she will have turned to a diet of flowers, buds, shoots and fungi. Peanuts snatched from local bird feeders are a welcome source of protein as are insects and any eggs or young nestlings she can steal from birds’ nests.

Summer is a busy time for a female squirrel with babies in her drey but it is also the time when she inflicts the greatest damage on the reserve’s native ecosystem.