A mystery?

[DorsetBoy]

On 13-10-2009, I was driving my bus towards Donaghadee. On the right hand side are some very expensive houses with very large gardens & on the left was the sea wall with the Copeland Islands about 1 1/2 miles away. All of a sudden a Grey Squirrel ran across the road towards the sea wall with what looked like 2 Pied Wagtails flying around it at low level. I can only assume that they were Pied Wagtails because this happened so fast & all I could see was black with white on the wings & they were fairly small & the flight was erratic. I had to brake to avoid hitting them & the last that I saw of them were that they were still flying close & around the Gey Squirrel as I went on my way.
Has anyone ever seen this sort of behaviour before & are there any suggestions as to what would be the interaction between the Grey Squirrel & the 2 birds? Pete.

[macwavy]

We get this type of behaviour from many different birds in the garden. Robins, great tits and more especially crows go for the squirrels. The crows gang up as the squirrels try to get to their nests but are usually seen off pretty quickly. The robins etc do it singly and fly at them, keeping out of reach,when the squirrels try and pinch the nuts from the feeders.
The large trees are just over our wall in the next garden (where I used to live) and20 odd years ago there were no crows nesting in the limes and the squirrels had a drey. It blew down in one gale in the early 90's. It was huge about half the size of a table tennis table. Then the crows moved in. I prefer the crows tho they are noisy!!!

[Merlin]

Its the mobbing tactic adopted by birds to see off a predator, as macwavy has said squirrels will take eggs and young from nests, and they and woddpeckers are the reason we put steel plates around the holes of nest boxes.

[DorsetBoy]

Many thanks for your explanation's of what I described. The 2 Pied Wagtails were certainly sorting out the Squirrel as they were driving it across the main road & towards the sea wall.