Squirrels.
 

Has anyone tried training squirrels?

When wandering aimlessly around Tesco, but closely following Celia just in case she needed cookery advice, well you never know, I came across the nut department.

One section was for unsalted peanuts with added raisins. For £1. Perfect bait and cheap. Since then, at lower cost than club red membership, I have trained two big ones and two of their new season’s offspring to attend a midday party.

Entering the garden at the end of January at the same time every day, I clicked my tongue a few times and tossed three small handfuls on to the roof of my newly built workshop. It worked, as they recognised the sound was associated with a nut. It started with just one of them coming down from their tree and then the other parent. Share and share alike I supposed.

They would sit on the roof at the far end, it’s 18 feet long, wait until I’d gone then scamper to gobble as many as they could. Then, gaining confidence, the two nippers joined in and did their best to get some.

They now get there before me, waiting.
Tails flicking.
Frowning.
This must turn into a nightmare. I think I’ve been trained.

Some years ago I built a squirrel run in the back garden, we have pine tree's around us and have always had squirrels as our neighbours.

The run is no longer as it weathered away over the years, but we still get visits from our little furry friends. We can hear them up in the pine trees making their way down to the run, always wanting their lunch at the same time each day. :duh: I have been meaning to build another run, as its great fun watching them shoot up and down, it doesn't take long to get them eating out of your hand.

https://www.the75andztclub.co.uk/for...3f5cb681c1.jpg

https://www.the75andztclub.co.uk/for...3f5cb982cb.jpg

This has to be the best post on a car forum ever :bowdown:

When I was a teenager we lived in Hastings - at the top of Alexander Park - I used to walk through the park most days to and from home.

There was an old chap there that used to sit on a bench and feed the squirrels. They knew him well and would sit on his knee and shoulder.

What made me laugh especially was the way they would sit on the bench next to him, lift up the flap of his jacket pocket and put their heads in to retrieve the food he had in there.

Some of the younger ones would climb right in and sit there with their heads sticking out of his pocket.

My partner Carole loves squirrels and she has a black one who visits her garden. Before her stroke she used to sit and feed them in her local park and people were amazed at them eating out of her hand

We have this little fella that comes every day. He’s getting tamer day by day and he now waits, looking at the kitchen window, for us to give him some hazelnuts.
He eats one or two and then hides the rest around the garden :D

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We have two sweet chestnut trees in the garden and a number of resident squirrels. When the chestnuts fall at the end of summer, we leave them on the ground for the birds and the squirrels. The squirrels go back and forth all day collecting and storing them around the garden. They seem to just ignore us and carry on with their work. Within a month all the nuts disappear with only the spiky shells remaining on the ground for me to collect.

We also have a resident pheasant who loiters around the garden. Every morning he sits on a gate post and squawks when we open the landing curtains.

What a beauty he is Paul, sadly we don't get any red squirrels around here any more, the greys have taken over. We often visit the Bournemouth winter gardens all through the year, its squirrel city down there, great fun to watch them chase off the pigeons. :D

I love hearing the noise they make, I cant make my mind up whether its a squawk like sound, or an extended bark/chirp like sound. :shrug: Its great to hear them on a summer morning barking up in the tree's, then we hear a russell of the branches and out they come shooting across the lawn like a bolt of lightening, fast little things. :eek:

I'd love to see a red squirrel here, plagued with greys which are little more than bushy tailed rats!

Lovely photos. That shows impressive dedication to wildlife conservation. Does Attenborough know?