Wednesday 18 February 2009

Red Squirrel



These squirrels are the native reds that were found all over England until in the late 1800's an idiot Lord blah,blah.... imported some North American Grey Squirrels for his estate, they brought disease and also being larger drove off and killed the native Reds so now the Isle of Wight is the last strong hold of these lovely animals as there are no Grey's here.


In the rest of England they are very rare and unlikely to survive many more years.


More info on the Island Reds http://www.wightsquirrels.co.uk/
This image is not that good as it was a slam on the brakes jump out the van and take the picture, I could get very nice images at some of the feed stations on the island but that is not how I like to photograph of a wild animal :-)
wilky


3 comments:

EtudeinLight said...

Red squirrels thrive here in Minnesota and are considered a nuisance-they devour bird food and pester trash sites. Nice picture-they are fast and can be hard to photograph.

Unknown said...

That's a nice shot for a "slam on the brakes" shot!

Eric L said...

Nice on the stop shot!

Never seen a red in person, all around here are grey, hope you get to keep your for a long time yet