The Trail Cam Thread

[Reece]

Where's Skybird??

[Skybird]

^ Here.

Have a trail cam since over two years in the garden, near the nutbar.



https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkK...KLetpSQ/videos


(And no, the bicycle tour video that the channel owes its name to, are not publicly listed anymore)

[AVGWarhawk]

@August nice shots!

[AVGWarhawk]

@Skybird. You have the invading tree rats as well. They do serve their purpose. They knock seed to the ground for the ground feeding birds. In our case morning doves.

[AVGWarhawk]

Ok, we purchase corn and peanuts to keep the squirrels off the bird feeders. This critter showed up today. And my trail cam should have good footage of this masked bandit. Yes, that is the new Tears for Fears album playing. I'm a kid of the 80s. Not apologizing for that. 😘

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

@Skybird. You have the invading tree rats as well. They do serve their purpose. They knock seed to the ground for the ground feeding birds. In our case morning doves.

Over here, European Red Squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) are not considered a pest, and are even a protected species. They are different from all the several different squirrel species you have in North America, and less robust. And almost all people here love them.

Not to be mistaken with American Red Squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus), its a different species, far more aggressive and looking for fights whenever possible.

The Japanese Red Squirrel (Sciurus lis) however is genetically extremely close to the European one, they still discuss whether the Japanese are offsprings of the European strain, or the other way around.

[Catfish]

Great footage and pictures!

I need a cam..

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Great footage and pictures!

I need a cam..

They are a lot fun. I didn't know our backyard was so active at until I set one up.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Over here, European Red Squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) are not considered a pest, and are even a protected species. They are different from all the several different squirrel species you have in North America, and less robust. And almost all people here love them.

Not to be mistaken with American Red Squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus), its a different species, far more aggressive and looking for fights whenever possible.

The Japanese Red Squirrel (Sciurus lis) however is genetically extremely close to the European one, they still discuss whether the Japanese are offsprings of the European strain, or the other way around.

Some consider them pests. Some eat them. The gray squirrel can be very destructive. Chew everything including wires under the hood of a car. I like them and give them their own spot to eat and do squirrel things. I have the trail cam facing their feeder. They can get crazy playing.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Some consider them pests. Some eat them. The gray squirrel can be very destructive. Chew everything including wires under the hood of a car. I like them and give them their own spot to eat and do squirrel things. I have the trail cam facing their feeder. They can get crazy playing.

Yes, but its all different species. We have two invasive grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) populations in Europe, one in Britian and where the grey by many people are considered a pest, these carry the feared squirrel pox virus to which the American squirrels are immune but it is absolutely lethal for our European squirrels, and one in Northern Italy, spreading. these are said to not carry that virus. However. The grey ones are bigger, stronger, more aggressive, they are social, and thus probably more intelligent. Practically everywhere where the red and grey populatioisn meet, it results in the vanishing of the red ones, there is no l,asting coexistence. In Britain, the Reds have almost vanished except in some small protected reserves in the North.



These are some of the reasons why over here, our native red ones are usually not seen as a pest by people, and as I said: they even are protected by law, you get legal troubles if you kill or catch them, the penalties can reach to I think up to 50,000 or even 100,000 coins. We have many squirrel rescue stations across all Germany, that nurse younglings and baby squirrels that lost their mothers for whatever a reason. I can understand that in North America it is different with the many species there, I have seen videos and films on their behaviour, they are MUCH different to ours, practically all of them seem to be stronger and more aggressive, many are bigger.



Yours are stronger. Ours are cuter, and they have pointy hair tufts at the top of the ears in winter. No other squirrel has these.


The only other squirrel families we have over here, are marmots in the Alpes, and spemophilus (=Ziesel), both are ground squirrels. We have neither prairie dogs nor other tree squirrels, only our small tiny cute red ones.


And if you have not guessed it already, I love them! Eichhörnchern bringen Freude in das Leben.