On Saturday, the kids were playing out in the front yard. It's fairly enclosed and we have a really quiet street, so they get sort of minimal supervision out there. Mam came in saying that she'd found a baby squirrel. In fact, she and Smunch were collecting a pile of acorns for said squirrel.
I was making dinner and I usually suspect that they don't know what they're talking about, but a squirrel that doesn't just run away is sort of unusual, so I went out to check. They had indeed found a baby squirrel. It was hopping around on the lawn, looking fairly unconcerned about the commotion...or the acorns, which it was far too young to eat. It appeared to be trying to lick water of the blades of grass in the lawn.
After spending two years feeling orphaned squirrels at Wildlife Rescue, I didn't have a lot of fondness for the rascaly, squirmy critters with long teeth and claws, but this little guy really was kinda cute and I now know enough about rescuing wild animals that I felt comfortble picking him up and putting him in a box. We left him outside for a while to see if his mom would come back to get him. Nope. As far as I could tell, this squirrel just fell from the sky. There wasn't another of his species anywhere in sight.
So we worked on rehydrating him. He seemed healthy and fiesty. Not particularly friendly, but I figure that's a good sign. We kept him overnight and then drove him down to Wildlife Rescue on Sunday morning. It was kind of a fun little adventure. I'd love to have been able to have him released at our house, but I've got a pretty good idea how the organization over there functions. They're undoubtedly overrun with orphaned squirrels right now. The one we submitted for care is better off with some squirrel buddies and with people who've got the right food and equipment to take care of him, but he's just another squirrel...just like he would've been hopping across our yard as an adult.
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