November 2022 marks the conclusion of our work around Loch Fad and gave us some very differing outcomes.

The positive site was Bardarrach Wood, where one red squirrel at the end of October turned into two red squirrels visiting the feeder in November. They provided some very engaging video clips, so do check out the videos if you haven’t seen them.

The negative sites were Quien Plantation and Barnauld Wood. One thing to remember is that we cannot say that these areas contain no squirrels – all we can say is that we did not find any evidence of squirrels during that six-week period.

In November we also put out two feeders in Cnocnicoll Wood (near Kerrycroy). Our trail camera quickly provided evidence of two squirrels there, which was great news. Food is being taken from both feeders so we hope we might get more information before we move on in mid-December.

Around Mount Stuart we have received more red squirrel sightings. We plan to deploy our feeders in the Mount Stuart area during December and January. We could get some interesting results; it’s a rich area in terms of tree species and there are lots of people looking out for squirrels. So do the recent sightings indicate lots of red squirrels or just one that has been seen several times?

PS Don’t forget, Tuesday 10 January at 7:30pm is our Red Squirrel evening at the Museum. See the Bute Museum website for more details.