I rehabbed a fox squirrel form 5 weeks old and waited until he was about 17 weeks to place him in a pre release cage. I withdrew contact other then feeding within a week of placing him in the soft release cage limiting it to only enough to feed him and change his water daily. After 4 weeks I opened the cage and allowed him to come and go. It’s been two weeks since I did this and I come by and put a small amount of food out and change the water once a day. I find him more often then not hanging out in the opened prerelease cage during the middle of the afternoon. Other days I don’t see him anywhere. Some days he’ll run up my leg and other days he ignores me completely. I try to limit contact and don’t try to initiate it at all. Is this a normal part of him acclimating? When I have released in the past I usually stop seeing them routinely after about a week.
Thanks for the advice!