Red squirrel
SCIURUS VULGARIS
Red squirrel is an agile rodent with a long and bushy tail, and it live in trees. Squirrel changes hair twice a year, in summer it is reddish brown and in winter gray. It raises winter warm tassels in its upright ears. The squirrel's most important nutrition is spruce seeds and they also enjoy other forest produce such as berries, mushrooms, nuts and plant shoots and flowers. The squirrel builds it's nest in a tree. It gives birth to one to six cubs at time, two to three times a year. The squirrel communicates with a whimper, a clicking and a beeping sound.
The squirrel's natural habitat is a coniferous forest, but it also lives in parks, gardens and yards. The distribution range covers the northern coniferous forest zone in northern Europe and Asia.
The thick and durable winter coat of the squirrel has been an important means of payment in the old days, and the Finnish word for money originally meant squirrel skin. Nowadays, payment for squirrel skins is a thing of the past, and the sympathetic whisktail is hunted mainly to reduce the adverse effects in the urban environment.
As an active and resourceful daytime animal, the squirrel is well adapted to living close to man. Some of the squirrels are so-called city squirrels, whose main nutrition can be found, for example, in bird feeding areas. However, it thrives best in its natural environment in the coniferous forest, where it can hide food at various hiding places for the winter.
Red squirrel
SCIURUS VULGARIS
wood | deadwood | stage of development | key biotopes |
---|---|---|---|
aspen | aspen | 1-5y | grove |
birch | birch | 6-20y | ridge |
pine | pine | 21-50y | rock |
spruce | spruce | 51-100y | spring |
other | other | stream | |
swamp |