squirrel control

[Sciurus]

1 hour ago, Mice! said:

The one I saw in the hazel on Tuesday was off like a shot, it must be the way I look at them 😄😄

I didn’t say I agreed with him!😂 (I like October),  But I have seen greys having a feeding frenzy on early hazel. I think it’s mainly the young ones who are not so wary of predators. I certainly take a careful look at hazel this time of year- just in case..

[Mice!]

3 hours ago, Sciurus said:

I didn’t say I agreed with him!😂 (I like October),  But I have seen greys having a feeding frenzy on early hazel. I think it’s mainly the young ones who are not so wary of predators. I certainly take a careful look at hazel this time of year- just in case..

Question for your mate( is it the fella with the whippet?) Does he shoot many in June/July,  I always find those months the busiest before the natural food kicks in, I took 45 this year across multiple sites, so there a bit scarce at the moment 😃

[Sciurus]

It’s the chap with the Ospreys I told you about the other week. He shoots and traps all the year round. The reason he likes July/August is the observation hide is surrounded by hazel so he can sit on the porch with a cup of coffee watching over the nest and silently popping off the greys and they just keep coming..

The whippet pal is a devotee of thermals and whippets, so normally shoots when the trees are bare. He hasn’t the patience for hides and feeder shooting. Takes all sorts.

[Walker570]

The 400 odd hazels in my wood are loaded with nuts but to date have not seen the normal trespass by tree rats. Hmmmm, do you think I have maybe wiped out most of the breeding stock in this village? 

Set a flip top on the new golf course this morning and will have a look about this time next week.  Should get two to three hours on it before golfers get around to me as it is alongside the 18th fairway. Lots of mature woodland so should produce. Green Keeper says they are all over the place.

[oowee]

1 hour ago, Walker570 said:

The 400 odd hazels in my wood are loaded with nuts but to date have not seen the normal trespass by tree rats. Hmmmm, do you think I have maybe wiped out most of the breeding stock in this village? 

Set a flip top on the new golf course this morning and will have a look about this time next week.  Should get two to three hours on it before golfers get around to me as it is alongside the 18th fairway. Lots of mature woodland so should produce. Green Keeper says they are all over the place.

I thought I had cleared them from here until I came back from my Hol's. At least one has been in but not dared to show it's face since my return. 

[old man]

On 12/08/2021 at 09:28, ratchers said:

A blank for me this morning, out at first light and saw nowt for the next three hours, best I got was hearing a squirrel barking in the distance.......next time then.

Strangely, they don't seem to bark much where I am?

[harrycatcat1]

8 minutes ago, old man said:

Strangely, they don't seem to bark much where I am?

Funnily enough the only place I have been "barked" at by a squirrel is in our local graveyard. 

[Mice!]

3 hours ago, old man said:

Strangely, they don't seem to bark much where I am?

Certainly strange,  they make loads of noise where I am, especially if I've shot one and the other can see it.

[Sciurus]

I very rarely hear them bark either.

Nev, for some reason I think they have completely lost their appetite in your wood- too much lead in their diet I suspect!

[Good shot?]

I had one for the first time (unseen by me immediately) barking at me for a couple of minutes on Wednesday. It was about twenty yards from me and well hidden in the foliage I had not heard this particular sound before and was looking for a Jay at first and then it made a slight move and I picked it up but not able to put my sights on it, this time.

Edited August 13, 2021 by Good shot?

[leakyseals]

finally! #9, mature sow, big critter in vgc. She showed up only once last week, travelling through on the fence top. Wasnt until friday and saturday she came to the deck to feed again but wouldnt take the trap until this am.

 

[Mice!]

3 hours ago, leakyseals said:

finally! #9, mature sow, big critter in vgc. She showed up only once last week, travelling through on the fence top. Wasnt until friday and saturday she came to the deck to feed again but wouldnt take the trap until this am.

 

Slowly slowly catchy squirrels 👍

[Rimfireboy]

On 10/08/2021 at 12:00, Sciurus said:

Some days things just go right- today was one of them.

6.45am sitting comfortably on a camp chair  under a yew with Daystate Huntsman on knee and listening to radio 4 on the earphones.

7.01 the phone pings, the remoti alarm has gone off on one my traps in another wood - one down without firing a shot!

7.15 the first grey slithers down the large fir tree and passes the feeder, it turns round and faces up and pauses. Psst thwack, two down.

7.20 another grey slithers down and start the tail twirling having noticed his dead pal  but pauses too long. Psst thwack, three down.

7.40 a third slithers down and onto a branch which I had leaned onto the tree as a ramp. It’s definitely not happy to see his two mates. it’s tails flicking like mad, it paused, I thought it might scarper and took the shot, it twitched , I missed and the pellet passed harmlessly into the undergrowth. The grey looked perplexed and ran up the trunk abit. I readjusted the trigger sticks higher and prepared for another shot but it ran further up the trunk and disappeared. Out with the thermal and found it, it was sitting in the fork of a branch, hunched up and looking at me. I readjusted the trigger sticks higher, poked the moderator through the camo net, psst, thwack. Straight through the head into the body. It fell, completely pole axed and didn’t twitch. Four down.

8.45 after a long wait, there was a clatter of a lid and another visitor. A pause, Psst thwack. Five down.

9am, I could hear the public arriving in the car park, so packed up  and made a discreet exit. (Well as discreet as you can with all your kit and a bag of greys).

9.30 arrived at the wood where I had laid two traps. A grey leaps up a  nearby tree - grrr I must have disturbed it before it went into a trap- but no, both traps had gone off and there was yet another grey hanging about on another tree. Blimey, I had recently carried out a two week scheme of trapping there with little success, now there were 4 greys there, 2 of which had been caught and two more to catch. I reset the traps and remoti and will pop back later this afternoon for a check.

The total for the morning was 6 plus another one which I shot last night when topping up the feeder. Where have they come from- August is usually very quiet?

G

I am now making feeders out of pipes and aluminium, because it rains a lot here and timber feeders were getting damp and within a week there would often be a carpet of wheat growing. Notice the paint has been scratched off the lids but the alloy hasn’t been chewed yet.

The last picture shows the remoti alarm which is connected to the trap door and which sends me an email and text when it has been triggered.

How long have you had the webley’s? Last time I had those was when I had my Vulcan in 1979😀. Good result anyway fella👍

[Sciurus]

3 hours ago, Rimfireboy said:

How long have you had the webley’s? Last time I had those was when I had my Vulcan in 1979😀. Good result anyway fella👍

Well spotted. I bet the tin is probably 50 years old! 

For culling greys in the trap, I buy the cheapest pellets on eBay to use in my old Webley Ranger and keep them in the old Webley tin for easy identification.

[Walker570]

I shoot the Webley Mosquitos with good effect out of my AA S200.

[sam triple]

Another 3 this morning that’s 23 from this spot alone , getting a few juveniles feeding off of it now 

One made a mess of the  feeder 

[old man]

Another blank today so moved the feeders about 50 yards to a hopefully better location. 

Just keeping on.

[Walker570]

They are heavy on collecting hazel nuts and burying them around here.  Hyper active.

[leakyseals]

As if by magic... #10 appeared this morning, unfortunately ive builders in or i would have had a try for it now. Very bold, seemed unfazed by me when I went out and was aggressively targeting the feeders, so hopefully will be a quick trapping this time.

[Rimfireboy]

On 17/08/2021 at 11:35, sam triple said:

Another 3 this morning that’s 23 from this spot alone , getting a few juveniles feeding off of it now 

One made a mess of the  feeder 

Good result sam😀👍

[old man]

Sitting by 07.30 today in my second location at the new wood it took 5 minutes to not like my location again, so up sticks and moved my seat 25 yards to the base of another huge Beech tree leaving the feeders unmoved. A horrible cold wind due to being on top of a hill, thermals soon.

Feeders completely untouched so not hopeful. Beech mast husks started dropping near to my seat so waited out for the tree rat to move, it did, jumped into the canopy to the feeder tree and disappeared down the far side as they do?

15 minutes later 1 appeared on the ground ignoring the feeders, making the mistake of pausing, one down a young boar.

A backdrop to one side is a gorse patch of about an acre. I discovered that the rats love the cover of gorse, three more were dispatched within the edge of the patch and not recovered. Non recovery may be a feature of the future till I move again?

Keeping on.

[Walker570]

Well I arrived well early this morning at the golf club and drove carefully down the 18th trying not to knock any trees over or into a bunker ...it was 5am and still pretty dark.  Eventually found where I needed to be and went to check the flip top and found it almost empty but a lot of feed on the deck as it had been knocked forwards allowing feed to pour out. My fault I had not fixed it firmly enough.  Anyway went back and found where I had decided to set up , put out my seat and the tripod, set the rifle and settled down to wait.  At 6.15 the first one appeared around the base of the tree then decided to feed on that on the ground.   The pellet found it's mark and it bounced off into the nettles.  I could see branches bouncing about as more started to approach. Then one must have come down the silver birch right above me and started complaining loudly, however another came down onto the flip top and suffered the fate of the previous one.  The noise above me ceased.  At 07.15 I packed up as I needed to re fix the flip top and fill it back up.   I had seven down in the hour but I am sure there will be more.   I am restricted here to about an hour or hour and half at a time due to golfers and local residents taking early morning strolls.  Still seven each time, once a week will do me fine.  Just a pity the Green Keeper did not contact me back in April and we would not have wasted all that lovely daylight from 03.30 through to 07.30. Nights and mornings are drawing in fast.   A missly wet morning may work as I can sit under an umbrella and walkers and golfers will be les willing to be out and about.  The little  bullpup worked a treat.

I spoke with a nice lady taking an early morning stroll and explained why I was there and she was very supportive..."Come shoot them in my garden" she said.

[ditchman]

3 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

Well I arrived well early this morning at the golf club and drove carefully down the 18th trying not to knock any trees over or into a bunker ...it was 5am and still pretty dark.  Eventually found where I needed to be and went to check the flip top and found it almost empty but a lot of feed on the deck as it had been knocked forwards allowing feed to pour out. My fault I had not fixed it firmly enough.  Anyway went back and found where I had decided to set up , put out my seat and the tripod, set the rifle and settled down to wait.  At 6.15 the first one appeared around the base of the tree then decided to feed on that on the ground.   The pellet found it's mark and it bounced off into the nettles.  I could see branches bouncing about as more started to approach. Then one must have come down the silver birch right above me and started complaining loudly, however another came down onto the flip top and suffered the fate of the previous one.  The noise above me ceased.  At 07.15 I packed up as I needed to re fix the flip top and fill it back up.   I had seven down in the hour but I am sure there will be more.   I am restricted here to about an hour or hour and half at a time due to golfers and local residents taking early morning strolls.  Still seven each time, once a week will do me fine.  Just a pity the Green Keeper did not contact me back in April and we would not have wasted all that lovely daylight from 03.30 through to 07.30. Nights and mornings are drawing in fast.   A missly wet morning may work as I can sit under an umbrella and walkers and golfers will be les willing to be out and about.  The little  bullpup worked a treat.

I spoke with a nice lady taking an early morning stroll and explained why I was there and she was very supportive..."Come shoot them in my garden" she said.

have you ever cleared enough greys to allow the odd red to come in ?................that surely would be the holy grail 

[Walker570]

I don't think we ever will here in the Midlands or most of the country. Great pity but there are those up north who are doing a great job and hopefully holding the greys back. Pity more people don't join us.  Have you still got some reds in Thetford ?

I spend a lot of time and effort killing them because they do a huge amount of damage to our song birds and other native birds.  Until I cleared them out of my small wood we never saw woodpeckers actually fledge and now we have at least four pairs.  Yes I know that these will also take eggs and young songbirds but at least they are native.

I saw my first grey squirrel runing down the road infront of the double decker bus I was on in the front upstairs seat going to school in about 1956. Bear in mind I spent every waking hour back then roaming my grandfathers and my 2 uncles farms, probably 5-600 acres total and never saw one prior to that.  Waiting to see when these feathered green squaking rats arrive up here and can see time will be spent loading up the old 410s.

[Mice!]

7 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

had seven down in the hour but I am sure there will be more.   I am restricted here to about an hour or hour and half at a time due to golfers and local residents taking early morning strolls

Cracking result for your first session. But that's why I moved my feeder off the course so I wasn't restricted by the golfer's who arrive at first light as they were playing off 1 & 9

8 minutes ago, ditchman said:

have you ever cleared enough greys to allow the odd red to come in ?................that surely would be the holy grail 

That's going to be more regional really Ditchy, plenty of guys doing exactly what you've said,  or getting reds in areas for the first time after a few years of grey control. 

We're on Angelesy this week, I knew the greys had been cleared from the Island and it took ten-fifteen years but I didn't realise just how big or tree covered it was having not been here since I was a kid.