ALITTLE while ago I wrote here in defence – no, in defiant praise – of the grey squirrel. Maybe word got round in the squirrel community.

At that time a single squirrel regularly visited our garden.

Assuming he was male, we christened him Charlie and he’s still a regular caller. But he now has a companion, possibly his own offspring.

From the newcomer’s skimpy tail we call him – very imaginative this – Skimpy.

Usually the pair visit separately, but they sometimes appear together. A chase up and down a tree often then ensues. In the absence of hissing or other noise, we reckon they’re playing.

I put out peanuts. But my wife regards these as iron rations and provides walnuts, two or three of which are always to hand: instant service guaranteed.

My wife persuaded an earlier squirrel visitor to feed from her hand but we both believe it is now unwise to encourage any grey squirrel to come too close to humans, for many of whom the grey squirrel ranks as wildlife Public Enemy Number One.

Even so, Charlie approaches across our lawn and looks towards the window, expecting his nuts. He sits and eats them in the open, ignoring our nearby comings and goings.

Skimpy, more nervous, he collects his nuts and scampers to a tree.

But what a fine thing it is to gain the confidence of a wild creature.

Have you read DH Lawrence’s poem Snake – about his encounter with a large poisonous snake at a water trough in Sicily?

They observe each other and the snake decides to drink. Lawrence watches in admiration but then, obeying “the voices of my education,”

which insist that poisonous snakes must be killed, he throws a log at the snake, only to regret it as the snake instantly disappears.

He rues missing “my chance with one of the lords of creation”.

A (grey) squirrel named Charlie, and his playmate Skimpy, might not enjoy that status.

But they don’t deserve to be cast as “tree rats”, the perceived enemy of the charming red squirrel.

In fact, the red is more of a tree rat.

Shy and not really fond of people, it spends more time in the trees than the grey, which is far more ready to get on with humans. Yet we repay it with hatred, now extending to targeting it as meat.

Truly, the Final Solution.

But if reds are as much tree rats as greys they are also no less thieves.

I’ve seen them robbing bird tables, another black mark against the grey. Our Charlie and Skimpy both occasionally have a go at our bird feeders, but hanging the feeders from a swinging branch usually defeats them. Better, of course, serve up the walnuts and peanuts.

Now hear this: in many places where the grey squirrel is present, notably suburbia, the red will never have existed. Most of our countryside is a desert for reds. In most settings exterminated greys will not be replaced by reds.

Do we want a countrywide population of squirrels, chiefly grey, or just a few colonies of reds, in reserves?

The celebrated philosopher Albert Schweitzer once said humanity’s greatest need was “reverence for life”. We shouldn’t destroy life unless it is absolutely necessary.

But, of course, we defy this ideal with ourselves, never mind wild creatures.