Polly Pullar has had a passion for red squirrels since childhood. As a wildlife rehabilitator, she knows the squirrel on a profoundly personal level and has hand-reared numerous litters of orphan kits, eventually returning them to the wild.

In this book she shares her experiences and love for the squirrel and explores how our perceptions have changed. Heavily persecuted until the 1960s, it has since become one of the nation’s most adored mammals. But we are now racing against time to ensure its long-term survival in an ever-changing world.

Set against the beautiful backdrop of Polly’s Perthshire farm, where she works continuously to encourage wildlife great and small, she highlights how nature can, and indeed will, recover if only we give it a chance. In just two decades, her efforts have brought spectacular results, and numerous squirrels and other animals visit her wild farm every day.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1. The Power of Squirrel Nutkin
• 2. Bough Lines
• 3. Cull of the Wild
• 4. The Arboreal Athlete
• 5. A Drey in the Life of a Squirrel
• 6. A Grey Area
• 7. The Compost Café
• 8. Care of the Wild
• 9. Drey in a Lunch Bag
• 10. For the Love of Trees
• 11. The Squirrels’ Return
• 12. Natural Conflicts
• 13. Ruby
• 14. Squirrel Tales
• 15. Squirrel Summer
• 16. Three Squirrels in a Bookshop
• 17. Squirrels Go West
• 18. Letting Go
• 19. Owls in the Chimney
• 20. Helen and Pipkin
• 21. Cloudy
• 22. Squirrels on the Move
• 23. Alladale
• 24. Foresting Hope for the Red Squirrel
• Afterword: The Child in Nature
• Acknowledgements
• Picture Sections