Page 80 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #02

All photos by Neil McIntyre/SCOTLAND: The Big Picture/naturepl.com
TOP Red squirrels inhabit both pine forest
(pictured) and broadleaved woodland. Like
grey squirrels, they make roughly spherical
nests called dreys, and each individual may
use several dreys within its home range.
Dreys tend to be built from twigs 6m above
the ground in holes in trees or set between
trunks and branches. They are snugly lined
with moss and grass.
80 BBC Wildlife
ABOVE LEFT Stripped bark is ABOVE Often the only sign
collected as bedding material of red squirrels in winter is
for a drey. Red squirrels mate their prints in the snow. On
between January and March the ground they move in
and have litters of three to four jumps like a rabbit, placing
kittens, which are born in the their front feet first, and then
drey following a gestation period the hind feet in front of them.
of 36 to 42 days. Females can Pawprints are 3–4cm long,
have two litters a year. and about 2cm wide.
February 2018