Thursday 7th September 2006

Baby squirrel seen in park. Keeps following people walking through the park. Sitting by peoples feet in park cafe. Crazy man picks up squirrel and declares he is taking him home to give him milk and look after him. We search on internet and find that they cant have cows milk - it could kill them. Rush back down to the park, luckily man is still there. Convince him not to take squirrel.

Second squirrel spotted. Very timid. Running away from people. Crazy man grabs squirrel by tail and declares he will take this one home. Squirrel goes to the toilet on him. Crazy man drops squirrel and it runs away. He then stands looking for it. Friend of crazy man comes and takes him away.

We sit watching them for half an hour. People nearly tread on them, a dog (luckily a friendly one!)  comes over and sniffs one of them. Eventually the two squirrels are together by base of a tree next to cafe in park. They seem to be looking for food. They keep picking up pebbles and trying to eat them, and searching in earth. People are trying to give them food but they don't seem to know how to eat. We go off to get some bird feed peanuts.

We get back and give nuts to squirrels. The timid one doesn't seem to know what to do, but the other one quickly gets the hang of eating. We notice a tail on the roof of the hut where the cafe is. We then see a little head pop up and look at us. There is a THIRD squirrel! He comes down to join his brothers. He also gets the hang of eating. Two more appear. There are FIVE in total.

All eventually learn to eat except one. The timid one who just watches. Three of them eat until they are full then practice climbing (and falling) on the base of the tree. The smallest one (seems to be the runt of the litter)  continues eating. Eventually they all settle into a corner by the base of the tree.

We go upstairs to get the camera. When we come back they are still setting in, but the one who hasn't eaten is now sitting on the tree trying to eat bark. He ignores nuts on the ground and because he is timid we cant get close to put them by his mouth.

They have chosen to sleep on the ground. The cafe owner put boxes in front of their alcove but it wont stop a fox. We don't know if they will survive the night,

 

 Friday 8th September 2006

There was a heart breaking moment this morning. The first thing we saw on the grass was the remains of a pigeon. A fox had obviously been during the night or early morning and had been hungry. They only seem to go for pigeons when they cant find food because during summer its much easier to root through the bins and get left over food.

 

We almost didn’t want to go and see the babies and we were certain it was going to be bad news, but we went to see them anyway.

 

There were only 3 babies asleep there.

 

I felt so bad as if I should have done more, but I couldn’t bring them to my home, we live in a flat and have a cat.

 

We decided we would have to build them some sort of shelter. We got some wood and took it to the park to see what we could do.

 

We built it over the little ones as they slept, but while we were doing that, we noticed a little face watching from the tree.. it was baby 4! He had survived the night. We were so happy.

 

By the time we had finished their shelter, the 5th baby had appeared. ]

 

They had all survived the night!

 

It was great news.

 

What was even better was that they took to the shelter straight away. There were happy to crawl through the little gap to their siblings without a worry at all.

 

Saturday 9th  September

 

We realised last night that the babies probably need water more than food. There is no where for them to get water from and it hasn’t rained for days. This morning I got up early and went down to them. I took a bottle of water with me. Only two of the babies were up. I had no container to put the water in so I poured the water into the bottle lid and offered it to them that way. At first they didn’t really know what to do, but when they realised it was water they realised they were thirsty! They drank one and a half cap fulls each!

 

We went back down to see them at lunchtime and they were all up. One was lying in the middle of the footpath and was nearly trodden on by a couple walking past. I moved him out of the footpath but he really didn’t look well. I got my bottle of water and filled the cap again and offered it to him. I felt he wasn’t one of the ones I had given water to before as he didn’t know what to do. Then he started drinking and boy did he drink! He must have been dehydrated.

 

Two of the other squirrels still hadn’t had anything to drink so I went to give them some water. However one of them is very very timid an wont come near people. I left the cap on the floor but no knowing what it was he didn’t go near it. We will have to get some sort of water bowl for them.

 

The squirrel that was lying in the path earlier had made his way back. I moved him to the tree with his siblings. I really didn’t want him to be trodden on. I wish they would practice climbing trees so they can sit up high rather than on a foot path!

 

I read on the internet that baby squirrels like sunflower seeds so I bought a big packet. I put a handful in their nest so the pigeons wouldn’t eat them

 

 

 

 

Sunday 10th September

 

Was a very quiet day today. The café was not open so the squirrels were relatively safe from big feet. However one decided to run down the pavement towards the traffic, but we cant be there with them all the time so they will have to learn themselves the roads aren’t safe.

 

I gave them more water and fed them sunflower seeds. They seemed to like the seeds because they were small and soft (I don’t think their teeth have developed properly yet, actually I KNOW their teeth haven’t developed yet from when they “test” my fingertips to see if they are nuts)

 

 

 

 

Monday 11th September

 

We found a recipe for baby squirrel milk on an squirrel sanctuary website. (can you believe that this squirrel sanctuary has a secret location because of the people that HATE grey squirrels… insane!)

Anyway, we made up the milk for the squirrels and they absolutely loved it. Well, the three that had some lapped it up. The other ones however didn’t have any. One was too timid and doesn’t come near people, the other one just didn’t know to drink it.

 


 

 

© 2006