Keeping the pressure on

Mat Manning shares his box of tips and tricks for keeping destructive grey squirrels in check during those challenging summer months

Anyone tasked with controlling grey squirrels will know that numbers can quickly bounce back if you take the pressure off. These destructive rodents often have two litters per year, and that, combined with others moving in from surrounding woodland, means that the vacuum you create will soon be filled. If that happens, your past efforts will be rendered almost pointless and the damage to trees and impact on other wildlife will simply carry on as before.

Quiet, accurate and, in the right hands, capable of consistently delivering swift kills, the humble air rifle is a great tool for controlling grey squirrels. The job can become more challenging during the warmer months when dense foliage makes it difficult to spot the bark-stripping rodents up in their treetop haunts. Frustratingly, this problem arises just as spring’s new arrivals are putting in an appearance.

A thickening canopy is no excuse for allowing grey squirrel control to lapse, though. The green flush may make it almost impossible to spot the rodents up in the boughs, but you can still bring them to book by luring them away from their hiding places — and the best way to do that is with a bait station.

An easy meal

Grey squirrels are suckers for an easy meal. Maize, wheat and sunflower seeds will all draw them in, but peanuts tend to be best at this time of year when there are other food sources available to them. Peanuts are not cheap, but the squirrels will usually choose them over anything else, so you should soon have them queuing up.

You can buy feeding stations online, or you can make your own. Most of mine are wooden hoppers that look similar to bird boxes. The bait is loaded via a lid at the top, and gravity ensures that it spills into a tray via a hole at the front.