Winter Grey Squirrel Foraging On Visit To My Cottage Garden In Scone By Perth Perthshire Scotland

Tour Scotland 4K Winter short travel video of a Grey squirrel foraging on a visit to my cottage garden in Scone by Perth, Perthshire. It is known that during Autumn, squirrels often cache their food items while food is plentiful, and in contrast, search for their cached items and consume them during the Winter. They must cache hundreds of food items during the fall since they are active all throughout the year and do not hibernate during the Winter. Grey squirrels cache their food in a method called scatter hoarding. Squirrels will cache each individual item in its own shallow hole in the ground, often relatively near the place where the food item was found. They then rely on memory and a keen sense of smell to relocate the food during the Winter and following seasons. This method seems to have its advantageous and disadvantageous aspects as food cached by other squirrels who have stored their food in the same area are often found, dug up, and consumed instead. Food is buried in a number of different locations by one squirrel, so defending the food items becomes impossible. As food becomes scarce during the winter months, food is inadvertently shared communally with other squirrels. As its name suggests, this squirrel typically has a grey coat with white undersides, though the coat colour can also be quite brown at times. Grey squirrels are mainly herbivorous, eating acorns, hazel nuts, berries, fungi, buds and shoots, and even bark. Native to North America, grey squirrels were first introduced to the UK in the 19th century. The species has spread rapidly and is now common across the United Kingdom, in England and Wales, with the exception of north and western Scotland and some islands. One of our most familiar mammals, the grey squirrel can be found in woods, gardens and parks, often proving to be very tame. A grey squirrel can be easily distinguished from a red squirrel by its larger size, grey fur and ears without tufts. All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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