Possible Boy Sighting

[Barby]

Last July I was handed (literally) two two-week old orphaned squirrels. Neighbor had had a tree cut down and the tree guys brought them down. The neighbor was uninterested in making any effort to save them so there, one summer night, at 8 o'clock at night (neighbor was goig to "leave them outside" ugh!) little did I know what I was about to experience! Despite my awkward initial efforts my duo survived and another life long squirrel lover was born. My boy chose to release himself from the prerelease cage and I was devastated. My girl followed protocol and I released her in a timely manner. All through the winter and into spring she was still around but I have not seen her for several weeks now and it breaks my heart. Ever squirrel in my yard I call to in the hopes it is her. Today there was a boy (clearly, ha!) in the yard and as I spoke to him, he didn't come to me but he didn't run off immediately and in that same "wild" way squirrels do. I wonder if it could be my boy. He sits and listens as I talk to him, as if somewhere deep inside it sparks something. (Or I am totally anthropomorphizing his behavior!) I just notice he always kinds of saunters off rather than the usually "OUT OF HERE!" sprint of the others. I guess I can just allow myself to believe it is him. I miss my little girl. I've always had pets but this wild animal thing is so new and such a different sort of heartache. ;)

[CritterMom]

Little Girl may be hiding - I am a bit north of you but my yard is currently rather x-rated. It is apparently "the time" when you see 7 boy squirrels chasing one poor female all over creation. I have gone out and broken a few of these chases up because the poor girls were looking frantic and the boys are very determined to stay in the chase, arguing loudly with me and running around me to get back into the fray. I can easily see a girl squirrel trying to hide when they are in heat after they experience THAT! Another possibility is that given our geographical difference, what is happening in my yard happened in yours a bit ago and she is busy now with the results of that! They stash lots of food near their nests just so they don't have to stray far during the first vulnerable weeks.

It is so hard to tell them apart if they don't have some unique characteristic - and given season and year to year changes in coat appearance makes it even harder, so you have no choice but to look to behavior. And I think they have longer memories for their humans than many give them credit for.

Some years ago I had to treat a young male with a very bad case of pox - I named him "Loxie" ("as in "Poxy Loxie"). He had lesions all over - just awful - and he was at the point where you could tell he felt awful. But he cooperated - showed up every day at our appointed time for his "medicine ball." It had his meds mixed with every kind of delicious junk food I could come up with - almond butter, ground pecans and walnuts, nutella - and he loved them. The other squirrels of course soon realized he was getting something special and despite my also feeding them, they started ganging up on him. I started sitting out there with him while he ate his medicine ball to toss food to the others to distract them and he understood that I was body guarding him immediately. He started sitting closer and closer to me and then began to hop up onto my lap! I could almost hear him mocking the others - "Neener neener, I have a whole HUMAN!!" It took months of daily treatment but Loxie got better. Some of the really bad pox had scarred him and those area grew white hair, so he had 5 very distinct polka dots, making him easy to "spot" (see what I did there?:grin2) He continued to seek me out to sit with me for years. I remember standing in my yard talking to a neighbor and watching him circling us, trying to decide whether he should jump on me with her standing there! As the years passed, his polka dots got fainter and finally disappeared and I was only able to identify him by the fact that he would hurl himself onto me any time he spotted me. This was a wild squirrel - I didn't raise him - but there was zero question that he remembered me!