Habits: The Eurasian red squirrel has powerful hind legs and sharp claws. It is perfectly adapted to climbing slender boughs and leaping in its forest home. On the continent of Europe, the red squirrel is found in coniferous (evergreen) forests. In Great Britain it lives mainly in deciduous woods. The squirrel is solitary outside the breeding season. But during the winter it shares its nest with others for warmth.

The nest can be a drey or a den. A drey is a 12 inch domed ball of twigs and leaves. It is built on a twig platform in the fork of a tree branch. The dome is packed with leaves, moss, and bark and limed with feathers, thistledown, or dried grasses. A den is often an old enlarged woodpeckers hole in a tree hollow. The squirrel lines the den with the same soft materials as the dome. The Eurasian red squirrel molts and grows a new coat twice a year. In summer it has a short, mainly reddish brown coat. Between August an November it has a thicker, dark brown coat. During this period its ear tufts become more prominent.

Food & Feeding: The Eurasian red squirrel spends most of its day finding, eating, and storing food. Its diet is similar to the gray squirrel's. Tree seeds are the main food. Conifer cones, found on trees most of the year, provide a constant food source. A red squirrel searches trees meticulously for food, some times hanging upside down to reach a morsel. It takes its findings to a thick cover or another secure spot to eat in safety.  When stripping a cone, the squirrel holds  the top in one paw and the base in t he other. 

Then it rotates the cone, biting off the scales to get at the seeds.  The rest of the red squirrels diet depends on habitat, but it may include flowers, shoots, insects, hazelnuts, and fungi. Unlike the gray squirrel, the red squirrel rarely eats acorns, which it finds indigestible. Both red and gray squirrels strip tree bark to get at the sap. If they leave a stripped ring around the trunk, the tree soon dies. This behavior has prompted foresters to exterminate gray squirrels.

Breeding: The Eurasian red squirrel breeds only when there is a good food supply. Pursued through the treetops by several males, a female finally allows one of them to mate with her. She can produce two litters a year.  While pregnant, the female builds a nest. She bears one to six young, but three is usual. For the first week after birth, she stays close to the young.

The mother is very protective. If the nest is disturbed, she moves her babies to a new one. At three weeks old, the youngsters eyes and ears open, and their fur begins to show. After about seven weeks they start to leave the nest and eat solids. But they continue to suckle for another three weeks.

Did you know?:
A neatly stripped cone is the work of a squirrel. If the cone is frayed, it was probably food for a bird.
A gray squirrel will not attack a red squirrel. But it may move into a red squirrels abandoned drey.
People have admired the red squirrel for centuries. It appears in carvings and mosaics from early Roman and Asian civilizations.
A siberian red squirrel once stripped 190 pine cones in a single day.
Born BLind and naked, Eurasian red squirrels are weaned at about 10 weeks old.
The Eurasian red squirrel take food to a safe spot to eat it.
The red squirrel uses its forepaws to collect and handle cones.
Nuts, seeds, fruit and flowers are rarely beyond the grasp of the agile red squirrel.

Sizes: 
Length: Head and body, 8 to 9 in.
Tail Length: 6 to 7 in.
Weight: 9 to 11 oz. depending on season. (lighter in summer)

Breeding:
Sexual Maturity: 11 months
Mating: Usually February to March and May to June
Gestation: 38 days
Litter Size: 1 to 6, usually 3
No of Litters: Usually 2

Lifestyle:
Call: Various chatters or shrieks.
Habit: Tree living. Solitary outside of mating season.
Diet: Tree sees. ALso bark, sap, flowers,. roots, fungi, insects.
Lifespan: UP to 5 years, but usually 2 to 3

Related Species: Closely related to the gray squirrel, Sciurus carolinensis.
Distribution: Found in a belt across Europe and Asia, extending from Ireland in the west to Korea in the east and from the Mediterranean in the south through Scandinavia in the north.
Conservation: In Great Britain the Eurasian red squirrel is an endangered, protected species. In other areas its numbers fluctuate according to food supplies but do not appear to be declining.

The Eurasian Red Squirrel and its Drey:
Tail: Used for balance when the squirrel runs or jumps in branches. Servers as a "blanket" to keep the squirrel warm at night. Its movement also reveals the squirrels different moods.
Whiskers: Long and sensitive. Used to judge space. The squirrel has other sensitive hairs on its forelegs, its belly, and the base of its tail.
Eyesight: Very keen. The squirrel can see in almost every direction at once. But it is almost color blind.
Drey: Nest of leaves, and twigs. Built among branches and lined with soft material.
Winter Coat: Thicker, darker, and grayer than the reddish brown summer coat. Ears are more heavily tufted.

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