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Photo: G. Bradley
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UK
Safari Tip:
For a superbly illustrated, and fact filled guide to all of Britain's land
mammals - click
here
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Latin name: Sciurus carolinensis
Size: Body approximately 25cms. The tail is around 20cms.
Distribution: can be found throughout most of southern England (except the Isle of Wight), Wales, Some parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Months seen: All year.
Habitat: Woodland, parks and gardens.
Food: Eats mostly nuts and seeds. The front teeth of the grey squirrel are continually growing, and to prevent them getting too long, they need to constantly nibble on something to grind them down.
Special features:
The grey squirrel is a native of north-east America. Its range there stretches from Quebec down through New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
It was first recorded in Britain in the 1820s, but they were not released into the wild until 1876 when
allegedly a chap named T. V. Brocklehurst liberated a pair in Cheshire.
Why they were released is still a bit of a mystery. The most likely reason is that it fitted in with the Victorians' ideal of reshaping all aspects of the world, and it became the fashionable thing to do. At that time very few people were aware of the damage that this might cause to native wildlife.
More introductions followed, like the pair which were released at Loch Long in 1892. As a result, within 25 years grey squirrels had spread to the eastern side of Loch Lomond and into Stirlingshire - an area of 300 square miles!
 If you find pine cones like these, nibbled to the core, its a sure sign that squirrels
are about.
 During the autumn months you might see squirrels burying nuts and acorns. They do this to provide for the winter months when food is more scarce. They can usually find the buried food again by using their strong sense of smell.
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One of the more destructive habits of the grey squirrel is to chew the bark off young trees to get to the fleshy green wood underneath. This can sometimes kill the tree, and
explains why grey squirrels are not always popular with foresters.
Grey squirrels can also carry the squirrel parapox virus which is fatal to our native red
squirrels. Grey squirrels rarely die from the disease because they've developed
antibodies.
The breeding season starts in January and finishes around June. This is when they are at their most obvious. If you walk through a wood at this time of year you can often see the males chasing the females in the tree tops, and hear their screeching calls.
Hear a Grey Squirrel Calling
• Click
here for the MP3 - 81 KB
• Click
here for the WAV - 443 KB
Grey squirrels have one or two litters a year, each producing between one and seven young. The squirrels home, known as a
drey, is built in a tree from twigs and dry leaves. In the summer months the drey looks like a leafy platform, while in the winter months it is deeper, about the size of a football, and acts as a nursery for the young.
In areas where there is a lack of
natural nest sites they sometimes move into the attic spaces of houses, where
they can cause damage to electrical wiring with their gnawing habits. This can
obviously create a fire hazard.
The grey squirrel frequently has patches of reddish-brown coloured fur, and we often get asked if this is the product of cross breeding with red squirrels. It isn't. In fact grey squirrels are more often half grey and half brown. To add further confusion there are also some colonies of black
squirrels, and we've also received sightings of white grey squirrels in Kent,
Sussex and Surrey.
 This 'black squirrel' was spotted Bedfordshire.
Here's another one spotted in a back garden in Girton, Cambridgeshire.
Warning: Squirrels May Contain Nuts!
Can Grey Squirrels Swim?
Whose nuts are these?
Squirrels at the Window
Grow Your Own
UK Safari Mammal Section
UK Safari Red Squirrels Page
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