Red Squirrel Alert

We were absolutely stunned to receive reports of a red squirrel here at Moss Wood last week. After all, we’re a long way from both the nearest known locations of red squirrel colonies – in Formby and the South Lakes. However, these reports were followed by photo evidence as you can see above, the squirrel perched on the fence by the touring field poaching the birds’ food!

Since then we have had a couple more sightings, and we have had the Wildlife Trust confirm that it was really a red squirrel (not a ginger grey squirrel as some people suspected!).

The Wildlife Trust also gave us this useful advice for anyone wanting to look out for red squirrels here at Moss Wood – the way to tell the difference between the two species (aside from colour!):

“Greys have slightly different face shapes – but the easiest way to tell the difference is that greys have a halo effect on their tail. You can see in these pictures of the red squirrel here that there is only one colour on its tail. Red squirrels also shed their ear tufts in the summer months – which is why some people may not have been sure if it was red because of its ears.”

You can find out more about the efforts to conserve and help red squirrels in Lancashire and the North of England through the Wildlife Trust and through Red Squirrels Northern England.

We are very proud to have at least one red squirrel on site here at Moss Wood and we will be looking into what improvements we can make to our already acclaimed environmental programme to help encourage red squirrels to make our park their home.

Fortunately, through our sister park in the Lake District – Skelwith Fold Caravan Park – we already have expertise in promoting red squirrels. We will be learning from and building on our existing knowledge to do our part to help our native little acorn-lovers!