The Animal Care Coordinator at the WCSV sent out a note today announcing that the first baby of the season had been brought in. Not a squirrel—it was a fledgling Anna’s hummingbird. But it’s definitely a harbinger of things to come… soon.

Of course, I know lots of squirrel lovers from my work at the Center. But I’m always thrilled when I find out that my non-rehabber friends also enjoy having the little critters around. Two of my colleagues from an online writing group have shared their squirrel appreciation with me (and their gratitude for the work we do for them), so I’m passing on their stories.

Jenny Cromie is a Michigan-based freelance writer who specializes in business topics and she also writes a blog called The Golden Pencil, which is a really valuable resource for other freelancers (like me!).

She tells me that last year she had two or three squirrels who would routinely jump on the roof of her apartment building and then jump onto her third-story deck to eat all (and she stresses “all” 🙂 of the birdseed she was leaving out for the cardinals, chickadees, and all the other birds looking for food. (Sadly she hasn’t seen any of them this year.) She sent me a couple of photos of one of her visitors—a lovely Fox squirrel from the looks of it.

Turns out, she’s not the only one in her family who enjoys the squirrels either.

“The cat in the picture is my 14-year-old Tenbo,” she says. “He was fascinated by the squirrel at first, and then so ho-hum about the daily visitor that he finally just watched out the window without trying to scare him away. Even when Tenbo tried to charge the window, the squirrel barely flinched and just kept on eating. :-)”

Sounds about right…

Carole Moore is also a writer who loves squirrels. She shared the most lovely story with me.

“I have to tell you about the little squirrel we had in our back yard one day. A cat got hold of it, but had not managed to hurt it yet, and I was able to get the cat to drop him. He immediately scampered back up a tree where his mama was fussing and the two jumped onto the roof of our two-story house.

A couple of hours later I walked back on to the deck and there was the mama squirrel and baby on the roof. The mama chittered at the baby, then jumped to the big oak tree. Then she turned around and chittered some more. He did everything but shake his head and back up. She hopped back over to the roof, then jumped to the oak again, turned around and chittered at him (I don’t know what it is really called, but I knew she was trying to get him to jump to the oak). He again refused.

I sat and watched this little drama for about an hour. My husband came home and we both went back on the deck. The mama would demonstrate and the baby would not follow her. Finally, to our delight, she ‘talked’ the baby into jumping. He took the leap, grabbed the oak, and she led him through the trees and out of the yard, presumably to a cat-free backyard or the woods.

It was so obvious to us that she was prompting him to jump. I thought she was a really good mama.”

I most definitely agree!

Thanks for sharing, Jenny and Carole!