Many Spaniards will tell you that Spain was once so thickly-forested that a squirrel (ardilla roja: Sciurus vulgaris) could cross the peninsula hopping from tree to tree, but squirrels do not occupy holm oak woods as they can’t deal with acorns and so have always been absent from extensive areas, particularly in the south. Moreover huge areas, in particularly the Ebro Depression, have never been forested since the end of the Ice Age.

Spanish squirrels increase in size as they move south, where remarkably large squirrels of up to half a kilo with colourful tails and white hairs can be found (the opposite to Bergmann’s rule which states that body size increases in cold climates and decreases as it gets warmer).

A number of squirrels have been released in recent years in city parks such as in El Retiro in Madrid. They’re also present in the city parks of Barcelona on the Collserola side.

In the past they were considered a delicacy. A bookseller once reminisced to me that the squirrels he had eaten in his village in Guadalajara as a young man was the finest meat he’d ever eaten, although he also reminded me that they are today fully protected. Nowadays, it is better to let them play in the trees.

Grey squirrels are mercifully absent from Spain.

Basque squirrels

Katagorri (literally redcat) is a lovely word in Basque for squirrel. They also say Urtxintx.
It’s Ardilla in Spanish, Esquirol in Catalan. Esquío in Galicia.

There’s a Basque song from the 1960s:

Nik ere nahi nuke
Izan urtxintxak bezala
Hain gora, hain trebe,
Izaiteko libre

(“I, too, would like To be like the squirrels— So high up, so agile— To be free.”,)

Aitor, a friend on social media, a Basque doctor commented:

It’s a song from my childhood, when our language was banned, Franco ruled with an iron fist and freedom was to be achieved yet. We wanted to be like squirrels. A song for children with a deep meaning.

You can listen to it here: