And so to North Yorkshire ..

I'd wanted to go to see the North Yorkshire squirrels at Hawes .. but as it's a 12 mile walk from the road .. or a two and a half mile walk from the official bus stop we decided to give it a miss!

My sister Googled and found somewhere that said it had a captive red squirrel breeding programme .. so off we went. It was a nice enough place and I enjoyed seeing the goats and llamas and ducks ..

There were two big aviary style cages - hundreds of yards apart and in each there was one squirrel. There were nest boxes in them, so possibly there were other squirrels in those.

But it was really upsetting to see these poor squirrels running back and forth like demented little creatures .. it was also upsetting to read in the blurb that the squirrels would be released when somewhere suitable was found.

What? Why start a breeding programme *before* you've found a release site? Bonkers.