Flying Squirrel

For a couple of years now our bird table has been squirrel proof, but during that time the yew tree has been growing and it's now brought the bird table within reach of this determined flying squirrel. The squirrels reward for providing me with today's blip? - I opened the window, shouted Boo and it jumped off and ran away - Life's tough if you're an unwanted introduced species.

Which brings me to my rant of the day - have a read at this article and this one. They tell of Defra's attempts at eradicating the Ruddy Duck (an introduced species). The articles are written by a fanatical (in the best sense of the word) birdwatcher so may have a certain bias to them (or indeed may not). Now I have absolutely no knowledge of the facts behind this action. I do know that Ruddy Ducks escaped from collections in the 1950s and have established themselves in the wild. In my birdwatching life I've seen them on a few occasions, but certainly not that often. It strikes me that if Defra are claiming to have shot 738 of them over 15 months that they can't exactly be that common and therefore can't be that much of a danger to our indigenous species. It also strikes me that if a fanatical birdwatcher who one assumes is fanatically concerned about the diversity & wellbeing of our bird population thinks it's that wrong, then maybe it is that wrong. My views can easily be dismissed as an uneducated rant as I admit that I don't know the facts, but it does seem to be a case of someone saying introduced species are bad, let's eradicate all introduced species.

I'm a Scot living in England. Should I be worried?

Good in LARGE, see if you can spot the joins!