Squirrels and butterfly habits.

St Joseph, cAD18.

Much has been said about the foreign intrusion of the more aggressive and larger American Grey Squirrel usurping the native species of Red Squirrels.   Along the mixed wooded Storeton Ridge the Grey Squirrel predominated.   A few miles away in Mount Wood, a pinewood of firs and pines, only the Red Squirrel predominates, with no sign of the Greys at all there.   The Greys seem to prefer more mixed woodlands and gardens, and the Reds seem to prefer the pinewoods and the profusion of pine cones, all full of seeds.   Perhaps the different habitats is connected with food habits rather than intolerance, one species to another.

I am always reading of the scarcity of butterflies, particularly the blame of farming methods and the use of insecticides.   Again, whilst I am sure that the use of chemicals on flora and fauna is partly to blame I have come across pockets of countryside where certain species of butterfly persist.  In my own garden I have counted Red Admiral, Cabbage White, Common Blue and other species after planting say Buddleia bushes.   I have found clouds of Small Blue and clouds of Common Blue on the slopes of the machar in the Outer Hebrides, whilst reading reports of their scarcity in south England.   This may well be the result of farming methods down south whereas the machar in the Long Isle of different islands is protected by law and is an area of  Special Scientific Interest.  Crofters do not farm it at all.