Holiday 1: Red Squirrel Quest ...

We have just returned from a holiday in Dumfries and Galloway. We had looked in vain for Red Squirrels in several places where they were known to live, but had failed to see more than a chewed or discarded pine cone.

We had perched in a Red Squirrel hide, ordered coffee in a Red Squirrel cafe and asked and asked for suggestions, but our quest continued.

We ended up at Eskrigg Reserve, a beautiful forest near Lockerbie. We sat patiently, watching a Great Spotted Woodpecker, a Jay, a Mute Swan, a Treecreeper ... but no sign of a squirrel.

We were beginning to think that we would have to move on when we came across a hut, and there, just outside, hanging from a nut feeder was ... a Red Squirrel.

We went on to see three more, and thoroughly enjoyed watching these magnificent animals as they interacted with one another, sat up on their haunches and ran up and down the pine trees.

I have reported our sightings on the Saving Scotland's Red Squirrels site. What a privilege to be able to watch - and log - these exquisite creatures.

Mustelidae (2): Baby Beavers in Britain

I'm sorry I don't have a photo of a real beaver!

Crinan Canal

Baby beavers - known as kits - have once again been born in the wild in Scotland. You can read about them on the Scottish Beaver Trial blog. This is really exciting news. Not surprisingly, the staff on the trial programme are hoping that members of the public will show sensitivity and respect for the beavers' current situation by avoiding the shoreline of the loch.

Many of us here in the UK only 'know' the beaver from wildlife parks or from The Narnia Chronicles by C.S. Lewis, as the species died out in this part of Scotland nearly half a millennium ago. Beavers were reintroduced as part of a recent conservation programme. The chosen area was Knapdale Forest near Lochilphead in Argyll - and the beavers who have given birth were rehabilitated here in 2009.

James Carron has written an excellent account here of his beaver spotting adventures in Knapdale Forest, not far from the Crinan Canal.

I have never seen beavers in the wild, but I remember walking in the area around Shapwick Heath on the Somerset Levels, where wild beavers roamed many moons ago. I wonder how many of you - like me - recall camp fire revels with the Brownies or Cubs. We always found ourselves singing Land of the silver birch, home of the beaver, a ballad which appeared in Folk Songs of Canada (1954) by Edith Fulton Fowke (Literary Editor) and Richard Johnston (Music Editor).

Only yesterday I blogged about the 'austerity' plans afoot to sell off national nature reserves. Success stories like this one of the beaver surely highlight the need to proceed with extreme caution ...