It’s the borderlands: the moorlands, hills and forests where Ayrshire becomes Galloway and where, in the last year, there have been several sightings: one down the road, another a few miles east, and four more to the south. Some say a war is being fought here because that’s the sort of language they use: war, battle, aliens, invaders, explosion, destruction. And it’s certainly true there’s been a hell of lot of killing.

From where I live in the borderlands, right on the Ayrshire boundary, it can look like the so-called battle is lost already. A family of greys live in a tree across the road, another in the trees behind, and most days, they come and check out my bird feeders. I bought a feeder the other day which the man in the shop told me was squirrel-proof. I then had to stand at the kitchen window and watch the squirrels work it out within a couple of days and scoff all the nuts. No one had told the squirrels what the man in the shop thought.

As for the reds, I’ve never seen one where I live, although looking at the map of sightings for 2024, it would seem like it’s good news on the whole. According to Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels (SSRS), a campaigning group led by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, red sightings have increased by 30% in a year. The SSRS said it was “incredibly grateful” to the people who’d been reporting the reds they’ve seen; they also said the number of red sightings was “incredibly uplifting”.

But you’ve got to ask: what price are we paying? The SSRS and the trust is keen on the language of warfare when telling us why greys are a problem – one of their favourite words is invaders – but they’re much more coy about the words they use when it comes to the fate of........

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