There's a small copse of trees near the main road which contains several large sweet chestnut trees (
Castanea sativa). Walking past there today, I stopped to watch about half-a-dozen squirrels foraging through the leaves for the abundant fallen chestnuts (it looks to have been a good year for the sweet chestnut harvest this year).
The squirrels were all grey squirrels (
Sciurus carolinensis), which are abundant in the village. One of the squirrels was black - not a different species, but a melanistic form of the grey squirrel not uncommon around here.
It's worth noting that this scene is a completely non-native one: the sweet chestnut is thought to have been introduced to Britain by the Romans, while grey squirrels were introduced from the USA in the late 19th Century.
Hi Penny. Welcome to the world of blogging. I enjoyed your recent posts & the striking photos of autumn. Have added you to my 'watch list' so will be popping by regularly. Frank.
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