As the leaves finish falling and temperatures drop across Nottingham, two very different pests are becoming increasingly active in gardens and roof spaces across Sherwood, Arnold, Woodthorpe, Bulwell and Old Basford: grey squirrels looking for a warm place to overwinter, and moles pushing up fresh earth as they tunnel deeper to escape the cold.
Grey Squirrels Moving Into Lofts Around Sherwood, Arnold and Woodthorpe
The mature tree cover around Woodthorpe Grange Park, Arnot Hill Park and the leafier avenues of Sherwood and Arnold gives grey squirrels an easy route from branch to roofline. Once the weather turns, squirrels stop simply visiting gardens for food and start looking for somewhere dry and insulated to spend the winter — and a loft void ticks every box.
Signs you may have squirrels rather than birds or mice in the roof include:
- Heavy scratching and scampering, often most active at dawn and dusk rather than overnight
- Chewed timber, torn insulation, and stripped or bitten electrical cabling
- Visible entry points where fascia boards, soffits or roof tiles have been gnawed or forced apart
- A build-up of leaves, twigs and other nesting material in the loft
Squirrel damage is not just cosmetic. Chewed wiring in a loft is a genuine fire risk, and because grey squirrels are not a protected species, exclusion and proofing work can be carried out at any time of year once an infestation is confirmed — but the entry point still needs to be found and properly sealed, or a new squirrel will simply move in behind the last one.
Molehills Appearing Across Bulwell and Old Basford Gardens and Allotments
Meanwhile, in the green corridors around Bestwood Country Park and the Leen Valley, and in the gardens and allotments of Bulwell and Old Basford that back onto them, moles are becoming more active below ground. As surface insects move deeper into the soil with the colder weather, moles tunnel further down too — and the molehills you see on a lawn or allotment plot are simply the spoil heaps from that digging, not the mole itself, which rarely surfaces.
Molehills are easy to tell apart from other garden disturbance:
- Neat, volcano-shaped mounds of loose, fine soil, often appearing overnight
- A shallow ridge of raised turf marking the tunnel just beneath the surface between mounds
- Little to no plant damage directly around the mound itself — moles feed on earthworms and grubs, not roots, though their tunnelling can dislodge plants and uneven a lawn
A few molehills on a lawn are a nuisance; a network of them across an allotment plot or a newly seeded garden can undermine root systems and make mowing or digging genuinely difficult. Mole control is most effective when it is done promptly, before a single mole’s tunnel network expands into a much larger territory.
Squirrel or Mole? Why It Matters to Get It Right
The two problems rarely get confused with each other directly, but they are often confused with other things: squirrel noise in a loft gets mistaken for birds or rats, and molehills get mistaken for the work of rats or rabbits burrowing in a garden. Getting the identification right at the start matters because the methods are completely different — loft proofing and humane exclusion for squirrels, versus trapping along the tunnel network for moles — and treating the wrong pest, or the wrong entry point, wastes time while the real problem keeps growing.
If you are hearing movement in the roof, or finding fresh molehills in the garden, in Sherwood, Arnold, Woodthorpe, Bulwell or Old Basford, NestBusters can identify exactly what you are dealing with and put a proper proofing or treatment plan in place, rather than a quick fix that only lasts until the next animal finds the same way in.
Call NestBusters on 0742 984 9483 or visit nottinghampest.co.uk to book an inspection.
