Out and About Near St. Austell, Cornwall

Peekaboo! Approaching St. Austell I noticed this lucky cat on the welcome sign.

And below another welcome to the town - not that there is anything going on of course.

In town, however, I did see a tiger ...

... and the very large humming bird.

On the outskirts of the town are sheep ...

... and this little fellow was wearing his best coat.

A pig was rooting about, churning up the grass. What a busy life.

Darkness filled the sky for a while but a rainbow brightened the view. To the right of the rainbow you can just see St. Austell's White Pyramid. 

Moving on to the coast. Below is Porthpean Beach, about 2.5 miles from St. Austell town. Often described as the beach where the locals go, but no one about today.

Inland again and a sheep with an itch!

Then it's along to the lake at Par Beach where there are usually ducks geese and the like - though the seagulls often like to boss the surroundings. 

And finally a flower, just because it's nice and colourful.

All in all a mixed set of photos for this post, but such is Covid-19 life at the moment.

Take care.

The Noisy Squirrel Who Wanted More Food

We heard a heck of a row coming from our back garden first thing in the morning. We were immediately concerned in case an animal had been hurt.

We traced the noise to a large tree in our garden and we could see a squirrel - a grey squirrel. We weren't too sure what was wrong because of the awful noise he was making.

This finally stopped and the squirrel appeared okay as he was sitting on a branch.

We went indoors and both agreed we never realised squirrels made such loud noises.

I looked out of the window a few minutes later and there was the squirrel in our bird house, as per the photos. He seemed quite happy munching on the seeds and nuts I had left for the birds.

The food was soon devoured and the squirrel appeared to push the dish forward as if asking for more - see below - an Oliver Twist moment!

We occasionally have a grey squirrel passing through our garden as we live opposite a small wood.

I did a Google search and found the exact noise the squirrel was making on the British Library web site. It seems that they can make chattering, rasping and barking noises and can become particularly noisy when alarmed or angry. You live and learn!

According to the British Library they are highly intelligent mammals.

As I guess most people in the UK know the grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) were foolishly introduced to the UK in the 1870s from the USA. This consequently resulted in a decline of our native, more attractive, red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris).

Back in the 1870s there were an estimated 3.5 million red squirrels in the UK. Nowadays, in England, there are only an estimated 15,000. The major problem is that the grey squirrels carry the Parapoxvirus, which does not appear to affect their health but can kill red squirrels. And we all know about the danger of viruses! We shouldn't mess with nature.