My incredible day with Red Squirrels: the third instalment

When we leave the house at 6am for my third morning of watching squirrels, the green woodpeckers are on the lawn again. A good sign.

As we walk through the lanes, bunnies sit to attention. We cut through a copse and the sun is filtering through the canopy, appearing as rays, like a painting. Along the side of the roads, foxgloves buzz with sleepy bees and cow parsley waves in the breeze.

Passing through the oak archways, the sunlight permeates the morning mist, making the air milky white. There’s a heavenly feel; the sun is making rays here too, and they turn hazy as they reach the mist. The wood is as magical as ever. A red squirrel with deep colouring and a dusty black ombre tail sits and picks the sunflower seeds out of the seed offered for the birds. She streaks up and around the trees, occasionally stopping upside down, hanging onto the trunk by her back legs and stretching her front legs out as far as she can, tipping her head back, stretching. Perhaps this is early for her too.

A tiny mouse appears – not a wood mouse, but one with more proportionate ears. It’s cute nonetheless, and scampers back and forth collecting the bird seed, whisking it away into the brambles. A great spotted woodpecker lands metres away and puts on a show, posing, assessing the hazelnuts, selecting its favourite.

The jays are quieter today, but there are lots around. I think it’s a family group. Jays are usually shy woodland birds, but a few weeks before holiday I had one on the feeders in my garden. This unlikely occurrence seems to have signified my unlocking of a new level in the natural world.

Before, I’d only seen jays briefly, through branches, like when a level is greyed out on a video game. Now, here they were, appearing often and in full view. This morning, one lands right in front of me, at eye level. It looks at me and I look back, taking in its neat black and white head, its rosy body that’s almost the same colour as the squirrels. It turns, showing off its striking blue feathers, collects some mealworms and retreats.

The magpies are laughing and disturbing the top branches of the oak, raining water down onto me.

This oak is very special. It doesn’t grow straight; instead, it winds backwards, leaning and turning.

It grows above the path, joining one side of woodland to the other – another squirrel bridge. It hosts hundreds of species of invertebrates as well as the ten or so species of bird I’ve seen here. I recently read that oaks take 300 years to grow, 300 years to live and 300 years to die, and I wonder whether this one is growing, living or dying.

I think of my beloved willow back home. Do I feel more magic under this behemoth oak than I do my willow? Undoubtedly, this is a blessed place – it feels wild, important, profound. But the strength of feeling I get sitting under this oak watching a red squirrel or a great spotted woodpecker doesn’t outweigh my joy sitting under the willow watching a blackbird find the early worms. It’s a different feeling, but no less real.

We walk to the end of the path again, and I watch a fledgling robin flit from branch to branch, its dappled brown feathers catching the light. Overhead, a pair of buzzards cry, dancing above and below each other, circling apart before dropping down to meet in the air. I watch them through my binoculars until they’re out of sight.

When we get back to the bench, we resettle for a last look before going to breakfast. A rat is taking up the leftovers that the birds have knocked to the floor. Rats are much maligned, and they’ve caused serious problems in places they’re not supposed to be (like breeding seabird colonies), but that doesn’t mean they’re not cute. Every creature has its place.

I listen to her teeth chewing the bird food and appreciate her perfectly round ears, the flash of white under her belly, her delicate hands.

Long tailed tits bob around behind the oak, tiny balls of fluff hanging upside down from branches, moving so fast it’s hard to keep track of them. Bedraggled blue tit and great tit parents and their fluffy offspring pick up mealworms. On the walk back, the hedges are alive. Butterflies abound, rising in clouds as we pass. I try to pick some out to focus on, to see if there are any I haven’t seen before. I spot one that looks unusual to me and snap a photo to compare to my ID guide later.

Spending time on the shore had made my desire to know about the life around me more intense than usual. Yesterday, in Godshill, I bought a full set of ID books – now I can name what I’ve been marvelling at!

Why is it that something immediately becomes more fascinating when you know its name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but a rose without a name would not.

Names have meaning – they separate this from that, one species from another, and when you know what you’re looking at you hold the key to endless interest.