Why Rowan and Hazel Make a Squirrel's Larder

If you want to find red squirrels in autumn, follow the food. Native woodlands with a generous scattering of rowan and hazel offer exactly what reds need: berries to eat on the branch now, and nuts to bury for the lean months ahead.

Rowan berries ripen from late August into September, hanging in heavy scarlet clusters on trees that favour wood edges, clearings and rocky slopes. Hazel fattens through September, its nuts splitting their husks in October. Red squirrels do not hibernate — they cache, burying hazelnuts singly across a home range that can reach several hectares, then relocating them by scent through winter. Rowan berries are eaten fresh, and they soften and sweeten after the first light frosts.

This is one reason mixed pinewood with rowan scrub suits reds so well. Grey squirrels thrive on the heavy mast of mature oak and beech woodland; reds hold their ground higher, colder and more scattered. The strongholds are the Cairngorms, the Trossachs, Argyll, Northumberland and the Lake District, with island populations elsewhere. Where rowan grows alongside Scots pine, birch and holly, you have classic red squirrel country.

Read the Wood Before You See a Squirrel

Squirrels are often heard and read before they are seen. Spend the first ten minutes of any visit scanning for sign rather than rushing on.

• Hazelnut shells with a neat, clean-cut edge or a small round hole in the shell. Grey squirrels tend to crush and splinter their nuts, leaving ragged fragments.
• Chewed cones nibbled down to a tidy core, with the scales trimmed cleanly back. Grey-squirrel cones look messier, with scales torn away in tufts.
• Stripped rowan twigs where whole clusters of berries have been nipped off. Look for berry skins and discarded stalks on logs and stumps.
• Dreys — football-sized balls of twigs and moss, usually four to six metres up in a fork against a trunk, and often lined with soft material.
• The scold: a rattling chuck-chuck-chuck, often accompanied by stamping feet on a branch. If you hear it, stop still and look up.

Timing: Quiet Autumn Mornings

Reds are most active in the first two hours after first light, when they feed and cache before resting through the middle of the day. Arrive before sunrise, walk in quietly, and be in position as the wood wakes. September and October are prime: berries are ripe, nuts are falling, and the canopy is thinning enough to see movement along the branches.

Conditions matter as much as season. Choose a calm, dry morning — a still day after overnight rain is excellent, as scent and sound carry and the squirrels move freely. Avoid windy days, when the whole wood rattles and animals stay low. Approach downwind if you can, wear dull colours, and keep your movements slow and low. Midweek mornings are far quieter than weekends and half-term holidays, and an hour spent standing still will always beat an hour spent walking.

Foraging Rowan Berries and Hazels Yourself

These are generous woods for the careful forager, but both crops need handling with respect — and with an eye on who else depends on them.

• Rowan berries must be cooked. Raw berries and their seeds contain parasorbic acid, which can cause stomach upset. Traditional rowan jelly pairs the berries with crab apples for pectin and sharpness, and is served with venison or game. Frosted berries are milder.
• Hazelnuts should be gathered only when fully ripe, with brown husks and a nut that rattles slightly in its shell. Collect a handful from each tree rather than stripping one bush — those nuts are a red squirrel's winter survival.
• Take less than you think. Leave at least two-thirds of any crop, never strip a tree, and avoid designated nature reserves and protected sites, which often prohibit picking without consent.

Traditional Crafts from Rowan and Hazel

Both trees sit at the heart of British woodland craft. Hazel is the classic coppice wood: cut on a rotation of seven to fifteen years, it yields straight poles for hurdles, wattle panels, thatching spars, bean poles, besom brooms and walking sticks. Green woodworkers value it for spoons and small treen, carved while the wood is still wet.

Rowan is harder and denser, good for tool handles, spatulas and small bowls. Its folklore is older still. In Scotland the rowan tree and red thread was a charm against harm, and a cross of rowan bound with red thread was fixed above doors and byres. Milk was stirred with a rowan stick to keep it sweet, and rowan trees were frequently left standing when land was cleared. In parts of England, Halloween was Nut-crack Night, when hazelnuts named for sweethearts were set by the fire: nuts that burned quietly promised constancy, while those that jumped and spat foretold trouble.

Treading Lightly in Squirrel Country

Red squirrels are protected in the UK, and disturbance costs them energy they cannot spare in autumn. Keep at least five metres from any animal, use binoculars rather than approaching, and never use flash. Keep dogs on a lead, stay on paths, and leave dreys well alone. Do not feed squirrels, and do not handle sick or dead animals — grey squirrels carry squirrelpox, which is lethal to reds. Leave the wood exactly as you found it, take every scrap of litter home, and let the nuts stay on the ground. There is no better reward than a scarlet berry crop, a quiet morning, and a flash of russet along a hazel bough.