Zanna's Nature Notes: Squirrels and Garden Antics

Discover the amazing natural world around you with Usborne author Zanna Davidson. This week we meet some cheeky characters in the garden.

Birds everywhere are still busy feeding their fledgelings. In our garden, we’ve hung up feeders with seeds and nuts and their favourite of all…fat balls.

A blue tit mother and baby perch on the feeder, the mother dropping tiny pieces of fat ball into her baby’s open beak.

Jackdaws come over from the fir tree in next door’s garden, and investigate what’s going on, to see if we’re worth visiting.  

You can tell a jackdaw from a crow by its pale grey neck and the white ring around its eyes.

Blackbirds dash in and out…

Even the great spotted woodpecker, who is usually quite shy, has come to the table.

You can see its huge claws, specially adapted for clinging onto tree bark.

The magpies think they’re the most important. They strut around on the ground, swaggering, as if they’re saying “Look at me! I’m the King of the Garden."

They’re greedy too. Here’s one with three nuts in its beak!

But my favourite of all, even though the food is not meant for them, are the squirrels.

They will do anything to get at the bird food. Female squirrels could be extra hungry because they have babies to feed. They give birth in March or April, but if there’s enough food around, they may mate again and have another littler in June or July.

This squirrel is very pleased with itself, having found a nut on the ground.

This one is attempting to jump from the garden fork onto the feeder.

Unfortunately, it got stuck inside the bird feeder.

We had to prise open the metal bars before it could escape.

But what happens in the garden when we’re not watching? Is anyone visiting who we don’t know about? To find out, we set up a wildlife camera. The first visitor was not promising… 

Another squirrel!

And then, one evening, look who came! A fox cub – all ears and inquisitive dark eyes. The highlight of my nature week!

Photos by Arthur Davidson-Kelly and Peter Bradley.