On Red Alert at Eshott Hall
You might have spotted the appearance of Eshott Hall’s smallest member of the team who, how do we put this, still manages to look a little more bright-eyed and bushy tailed than the rest of us after a late shift. Sebastian, our not so shy resident red squirrel has become a firm favourite with the younger visitors to Eshott Hall and has slowly adopted the role of our friendly hotel mascot. (They’re not just for sports teams you know).
But it’s a rare trip to Eshott when you don’t spot the real McCoy – dozens of our native reds who have made their homes in our ancient woodland and hotel gardens. And this is partly down to our location, North Northumberland being a prime playground for reds, but also to the conservation schemes that we actively participate in to preserve these beautiful creatures.
We work closely with Northumberland Wildlife Trust, the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers and The Red Squirrel Protection Partnership to do just this. With the help of these organisations we have installed wildlife feeding stations, nesting boxes and wildlife corridors to enable our squirrels to thrive on the Eshott estate. And recent recordings confirm that they certainly are.
Walk the grounds and the woodland footpaths on your next visit and you may like to play your part in some red squirrel identification and monitoring of your own. We have a number of fact sheets and fun activities for you to complete which will also help us to keep tabs on our squirrel population. We’ll pass the results onto our conservation partners, along with any sightings of grey squirrels as it’s important to spot if they are spreading.
And if you’re unlucky enough to miss the squirrels there is always Sebastian.