Wildlife camera captures tiny squirrel gorging on large mushroom

A man set up a camera to uncover what was devouring all the mushrooms in his favourite woodland only to discover the culprit was - a ravenous squirrel.

Wildlife enthusiast Stephen Sangster, 41, works in banking, but manages a piece of woodland in his spare time.

He realised that the mushrooms were disappearing across the forest in Sissinghurst, Kent, and set out to find out why.

Stephen set up a wildlife camera next to one of the large mushrooms and caught a grey squirrel red-handed eating the fungi.

Video shows the rodent approach the mushroom on the forest floor before it gorged on the whole thing.

Stephen, who lives in Orpington, London, said: "I set the camera up as I noticed all these lovely mushrooms were very quickly disappearing in a woodland I manage in my spare time.

"We’ve been using the nature camera to understand more about the wildlife in the wood.

"We set the camera up and left it in position for a week.

"When we returned yesterday the mushroom has completely gone.

"We excitedly reviewed the footage to see find this greedy squirrel.

"It was quite a surprise as we didn’t know squirrels enjoyed mushrooms so much.

"We were even more surprised to see him eat the whole thing!"

Stephen is passionate about protecting ancient woodlands and has even filmed other animals from the woodland that have featured in a Sir David Attenborough documentary.

He added: "Last spring I shared some footage of badger cubs and the BBC came to film.

"They ended up on the BBC documentary called Wild Isles with Sir David Attenborough narrating over them!

"So some famous animals from this small woodland. Just goes to show how interesting and important our ancient woodlands are in the UK and why they must be protected."

The footage was captured on August 19.