Saturday, August 29, 2009

Squirrel Momma Drama

Elliot and I went home for lunch yesterday. When we walked outside to leave, we noticed a little commotion on top of the hood of my car. On closer inspection, we saw that a baby squirrel had wedged its head underneath one of my windshield wiper blades.

I've never even seen a baby squirrel in real life before! It was tiny and the poor thing was so scared. It had a very high pitched cry.

Elliot and I saw the momma squirrel running away. We decided to just leave the baby alone. But after a few minutes, we could see it was in a lot of distress and couldn't free itself. Elliot went back and lifted the wiper blade.

The little squirrel was too tiny to hop off of the car. I'm not even sure it could walk well on its own. The momma squirrel was in a tree nearby, watching her baby, but she wouldn't come back for it. We waited 20 minutes and then called the vet. The vet's office said that we need to wait a few hours before we can be sure that the mother won't return.

Elliot and I decided to go back to work. We put a big rock next to the wiper blade that was proped up, to make sure it didn't snap back down and hurt the baby squirrel. We never touched the baby, so we were hopeful that the mommy would return.

After a couple of hours at work, I was beside myself, worrying about the squirrel. I was afraid that the momma wasn't coming back, that a bird got the baby, that it was too hot on top of my car and the squirrel was roasting. I asked Elliot if we could go check on it.

We drove back home, preparing ourselves for the worst. But when we got there, the baby was gone. There was no blood or anything to indicate something bad had happened. I'm very hopeful that the momma came back for her baby. Good thing we were home to get the baby's head loose!

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