Could You Help Us Out a Little, Please?

Jean's baby squirrels, too young to be without Mom

It's been raining baby squirrels at my house in the Green Valley neighborhood of Greensboro: four in the past month, all of which I gratefully turned over to the care of wildlife rehabbers.

All of the babies came right up to me, as if asking for help. Baby #3 even plopped herself right down on my shoe. The morning after I turned her over to PWR, I heard baby squirrel distress calls and knew right away (being a rescuer of vast experience by this time) that this was most likely the sibling to #3. Unfortunately, the cries were coming from high in the tree.The nest was at the very tip-top of a mature beech. Then quiet all day until late afternoon, when I again heard the crying.

I was on the phone talking to Melissa about acorns when I happened to see that the squirrel in question had managed to climb down to within 25 feet or so of the ground. Melissa said she would come right over and that I should stand in the yard and see if it would come to me. However, this little girl was much shyer than her sister; she saw me and scooted round to the other side of the tree and right back up to higher ground. When Melissa arrived, with the sister squirrel in tow, we stood in the yard for awhile, hoping #4 would see her sister and come on down, but no such luck. She traveled higher, then came back down partway, finding a warm sunbeam on a large horizontal branch to rest on. It was late in the day, temperatures were dropping, and we feared the baby would not survive another night without warmth and nourishment. We kept her in sight, and finally took ourselves out of sight, leaving sister on the ground in her carrier.

At some point, sister must have been getting hungry, because she began crying, and then so did our tree-bound baby. She roused from her rest and began crawling along the branch, first toward the tree trunk, then back out toward the end of the branch, back and forth, back and forth. Eventually her constant crying attracted the attention of an adult squirrel in a nearby tree. We watched with trepidation as it approached. The adult ran up and pounced on the infant, which tried to flee and immediately lost its balance and plummeted to the ground, where it was captured using my fish pond net. Hurray!! Happy ending! Melissa gave her a sip of sugar water and then reunited her with her sister, who immediately wanted to play. Both of them have recovered and are thriving in the care of PWR.

Jean Murdick