Archive 2008: The red squirrel assault course

How specialist camera operator Jo Charlesworth took on the red squirrels of Brownsea.

The red squirrels of Brownsea Island have been thrown a gauntlet by the Autumnwatch production team: can they complete an obstacle course in order to claim a nutty treasure? Designed to showcase the red squirrels' ability to learn, the course was created by specialist camera operator Jo Charlesworth.

"The course is measuring agility in the first instance and memory to a certain extent, but its really just for fun," says Jo. "To be honest I thought it would never work in the amount of time we've had to do it as I was sure it would take the squirrels a lot longer than two weeks to work it out. But it's worked surprisingly fast."

Step-by-step

Set up in the grounds of Rose Cottage on Brownsea Island, one of the island's private residencies, the course started really easily with the squirrels just having to climb a tree to get to a platform with nuts on, but Jo, 27, soon realised he'd have to up the stakes.

"We started to get them to balance on a tight rope, or to try crossing the course balancing on plastic tubing, but the hardest one so far has been a seesaw," he says. "They didn't like that as it moved as soon as they climbed on it. There were a bit wary to start with, but soon got used to it."

Personal challenge

Creating the squirrel obstacle course became something of a mission for Jo. While happy to watch his little army of red soldiers succeed in their mission, the Bristol-based 'squirrel drill sergeant' admits his 'troops' have proved quite a challenge.

"It makes me really happy when they do it. It's really satisfying," he says. "What's frustrating is when they do things you don't want them to by working out ways of going around something, rather than going across it. There's one that will sit at the picnic bench at the end of the garden and look at how he can to the platform with the nuts on by the quickest route rather than run the entire course.

"If you took the baffles from the poles, they'd go straight to the platform with the nuts. It's been really interesting to watch them take a good look at the course before they invest the energy in running along it. They are much cleverer than I thought they'd be. I think they've got used to the idea that a new platform means food too and they seem to be trying that first rather than starting at the front of the course. There's no proof, but it's a gut feeling I've got having watched them over the last couple of weeks."

Unlike many of the Autumnwatch team, Jo didn't study animal behaviour, biology, zoology or natural history at university, but he worked for a number of years in the construction and building industry. It has been the perfect background for creating a squirrel obstacle course or building the many specialist camera units used in the programme. Duck-cam, used in a previous edition of Springwatch, is still one of his favourites.

"I was interested in wildlife as a kid, I think most kids are," says Jo, originally from Shebbear in Devon. "But then you get to your teens and other things take over, but then you come back to it. I'm really lucky as I'm seeing things you wouldn't otherwise and I'm doing things you wouldn't normally do. It's a hugely privileged position, I wouldn't swap it with anybody. To then be able to share that with the Autumnwatch or Springwatch audience is just brilliant."

Wildlife watching

Normally on Autumnwatch the programme makers are as unobtrusive as possible, quietly observing wildlife in their natural habitat and sharing the daily dramas with around four million viewers a night, but Jo has enjoyed engaging with the red squirrels, who are already very used to human company thanks to the large number of visitors to Brownsea Island.

"It's been really different as you're normally just trying to watch something in its environment," he says. "Here we're trying to get them to do stuff, but we're still just watching what they do: observing their natural curiosity in an environment we've created for them to play in, whereas normally we're just watching what happens in their everyday life.

"There's also a huge amount of food for the squirrels already on Brownsea due to the vast amount of woodland here. There's no need for them to play on the obstacle course for the nuts because they're actually hungry. I reckon they're just enjoying the chance to get on the telly."