Oh jesus! There are other animals visiting the red squirrel feeders.

This incredible photo was captured by Red Squirrel volunteers Shelly and Andy Farrant.

Shelly and Andy currently work for the Camping and Caravanning Club in the area. For several months, they have been visiting the woods every week to check on activity at the squirrel feeders, capturing images of various visitors in addition to the squirrels, as seen in the photo!

Their work is of great help to the Keswick Red Squirrel Group rangers, helping them understand where red squirrels and gray squirrels may be present.

The group, created in March 2020, has several volunteer rangers and foraging monitors dedicated to helping threatened native red squirrels survive and thrive.

Gray squirrels transmit the squirrelpox virus, which is harmless to them but almost always fatal to red squirrels, causing terrible injuries and blindness and potentially wiping out a community of red squirrels in a matter of a few weeks. The only way to protect the red population is to control the gray squirrels.

For more information or to report red or gray sightings, please email [email protected] or find the group on Facebook.