My incredible day with Red Squirrels: the sequel

Today, I stand on the deck at 5.30am, listening to the rain in the chestnut trees and debating whether to go and see the squirrels. I decide to go; I can see what their behaviour is like in the rain. It’s cool and fresh, and I like being in woodland in wet weather.

As soon as I leave the house, I know that going out instead of returning to bed was the right choice. It usually is. Three green woodpeckers are feeding on the lawn opposite my car.

As we snake through the thatched pubs of Shanklin Old Village, a red squirrel runs out across the road, silhouetted in the early morning light. Going out was a very good decision.

I park the car and we walk down quiet lanes. They weave through woodland and farmland, and as the light starts to filter through the canopy, a cockerel calls good morning. Over the hills, towards the sea, rays of sun beam through the clouds, dusky pink and orange.

The final turn to the wood is a lane boxed in by hedges of tangled bramble, the white flowers already starting to buzz with life. Oak trees have grown in an arch across the road, forming green tunnels for us to walk through. Squirrel bridges.

Cobwebs stretch across my face as we get onto the narrower footpaths of the woodland. I welcome this feeling; it’s a feeling of the pioneer, the first person of the day to pass through. Jays are calling – a loud, shrill sound in the quiet.

We get to the bench and settle under glossy wet oak leaves. Light filters through the oaks and beeches in the clearing below. We place some hazelnuts on the posts a few metres away and wait. I watch the jay family. Every time they land above us, they shower cold raindrops onto our faces. It’s refreshing, grounding. We watch a squirrel on the far side of the wood, but she doesn’t come any closer.

Finally, a scampering below our feet. We peer down the bank and there she is – a red squirrel, bounding up the muddy bank towards us. We lean back and watch as she jumps from post to post, looking for food. She stashes the nut in her cheeks, tries to fit a second but can’t, so rushes away to bury the treasure. She’s tiny, and her russet fur makes her look warm.

When she comes back for the fifth time, she ignores the hazelnuts on the fence posts and comes to us. She dances around our feet, standing up and resting her front feet on the bench.

I hold out a hazelnut tentatively, and she hops up, takes it out of my hand. She sits there for a moment, uses her hands to position the nut in her cheeks. She feels so important, so precious, that it’s almost too much to bear. Food cached, she scrambles away up the tree.

We spend two hours or more like this, watching her scamper around. We place nut after nut on the posts and she busily carries them away.

When it seems like she’s buried enough nuts for one day, we wander further along the path. A boardwalk stretches out through the woodland over boggy ground. We walk along, and I try to notice all the trees. Oak. Oak. Beech. Oak. There are a few I can’t identify yet.

Turning back, a buzzard gives its mournful cry as it takes off from its roost, circling in the weak blue sky. A green woodpecker hops from trunk to trunk, fixing me with its stare.

When it’s time to go home for a cup of tea, we walk through the oak tree archways again, alongside the bramble flowers. When we get to the woods, I take the lower, wetter path. I breathe in the smell of the trees as the mud sucks at my wellies, asking me to stay.

I'd like to know this place. I want to learn all the trees, the birds, the insects. I want to find out its history, its ecology, its future. If I lived near somewhere like this, I would be constantly fascinated, engaged. I wonder, would I spend any time at all watching mindless TV if I could sit here, with the woodpeckers and the squirrels? Or would I become blind to it if I lived nearby, desensitised to the beauty? I doubt it.

I returned to spend another day with the squirrels. Read about it here.