Sometimes We Can Help in Small Ways
Here in Minnesota, it is the season when the maple trees start shedding their helicopter seeds. Simultaneously with that, this year's baby squirrels come down from their leafy nests to eat the soft green maple seeds. This all works out very well, since the squirrels have timed their reproductive cycle so that the newly-weaned squirrels have an ample supply of easy to eat food when they first begin to separate from their mothers. Most of the time, it works out well, anyhow.
Today, when taking Dude, the beagle/basset mix, out to pee, I noticed a cluster of crows, busy eating something in the gutter in front of my neighbor's house. After returning him to the house, I went back out to see what the crows were dining on. It was a squirrel. A female squirrel with swollen mammary glands. This was clearly not a good thing. She had been killed by a passing car, as so many squirrels are every year.
My wife and I feed the local squirrels in our front yard. We have a mix of gray squirrels, albino squirrels, and small red squirrels, all coming to our yard for unsalted roasted peanuts in the shell. It's a constant cartoon. Between the squirrels and the birds that flock to our feeders, there's a constant circus in our front yard.
Anyhow, it seemed to me that it would be likely that the mother squirrel had young ones, since I had seen a few making their first tentative forays away from the large trees in our mid-50s neighborhood. So, I walked down the sidewalk, looking to see if any young squirrels were about.
Sure enough, it took only a minute to find a small squirrel with oversized feet crouching in the grass next door. It wasn't moving, and wasn't particularly afraid of me as I approached. I continued looking, but saw no more young squirrels, so I returned to the one I had found. Now, this is a delicate time of year. After only a couple of weeks, the year's new crop of squirrels are capable of surviving on their own. Mom pretty much ignores them, and they soon learn the ropes. So, was this one ready to be on its own or not?
I crouched down near the youngster, but saw no fear of the large human looming over it. That's a sign that the youngster has not learned any survival skills. So, I ventured to touch the little critter on top of the head, giving it a light stroke with my finger. It actually seemed to relax even more. Nope. This baby was not ready to be on its own. So, now what?
Well, that's easy. I went in the house, got a small cat carrier and returned to the squirrel. I petted it lightly again on the head, and then picked it up with two fingers by the scruff of its neck and put it in the carrier and closed the door. The little guy climbed up on the wire mesh and started shrieking. I have never heard that sound from a squirrel. It was still not frightened. It just didn't like the change.
Into the back seat of my car the carrier went, and I drove about five miles to a wildlife rescue center in the next suburb. I knew where it was, because I'd been there before to make a donation. I took the carrier inside, where a 20-something woman with a serious expression on her face said, "What do you have there?"
"A baby squirrel. Mom got killed by a car." The young woman looked in the carrier, opened the door, reached in and just picked the little creature up, turned it upside down and said, "It's a female. Look. If it was a male, it's little penis would be right there." Anyhow, she said that this was the season of the baby squirrels and that they had a couple dozen of them in the place already. She promised to look after it and took my address. "We'll bring her back and release her at your house, right where she was found, and she can join the others from that neighborhood."
I said my thanks and returned home, just in time for happy hour. And so it goes in springtime in St. Paul, MN. A squirrel dies, and another squirrel lives. Life's good!
= new reply since forum marked as read
for that baby. 
