The well-stocked feeders surrounding the hide were thronged with great tits, blue tits and chaffinches, while a pair of blackbirds and a plump hen pheasant gleaned the spilt seed below.
I was showing my father a great spotted woodpecker that was drilling for insects high in the crown of a distant oak, when our attention was diverted by the scratching sound of feet rapidly descending the outer wall of the hide.
A pair of tufted ears appeared and bobbed along the edge of the window frame, then a bewhiskered face popped up beside the row of hazelnuts we had balanced on the sill.
The red squirrel’s fur was the brightest I have ever seen, like the glow of sunlight through a jar of marmalade. I guessed from her petite size and baby face that she was one of last season’s kits.
She delicately picked up a nut with her teeth, then used her paws to cram it more securely into her mouth, her chubby cheeks bulging. She leapt out of the window on to the adjacent willow tree and corkscrewed down the trunk, just as another squirrel darted through the doorway, scrabbling up the plywood wall like a free climber scaling a sheer rock face.
We heard chittering as two more scampered across the roof, their footfall like the patter of raindrops.
We tried to keep track of the squirrels as they scurried in through one entrance and out through another. As they ranged in colour from bright orange, through amber to deep russet, we managed to ascertain that there were at least five individuals, possibly six.
The boldest character was a stocky, tawny-coated male with a dark tail that curled round his body like a plume of smoke. While the others employed a “snatch and run” technique, he carefully selected a nut, then sat pertly on the ledge, his chisel-like incisors rasping through the shell.
Once he had nibbled out the kernel, he stuck his tongue into the hollow and slowly spun the shell in his forepaws, like a child licking the crumbs from a cupcake case.
