Squirrels and their love affair with our family

On a warm Easter Monday afternoon, Derek was sweeping our deck when he discovered a nest inside our folded parasol. Now it serves us right to have the thing destroyed by creatures for having left it out all winter. In our defense, if you've been on our deck, you know we don't need a parasol: four large Manitoba maples take care of the shade for us.

Derek called the girls and me over. The nest was large–about a meter long and over 40cm in circumference. Derek looked inside and didn't see anything, so he started poking at it, and showing the girls how nests are made. At this point, we still thought it was a bird's nest, and an abandoned one at that. So soon, we pulled it down in order to dispose of it and get our parasol back. As the nest fell on the deck, we heard loud chirps. "Oh no! Shit!" was all Derek could get out, and the girls began to scream. I herded the girls into the house while Derek dealt with the fallout.

He managed a look inside and spotted three tiny little squirrels. The chirping stopped. So Derek called me out to help him get the nest back into the parasol. I thought the little rodents were done for and protested, but Derek and the kids were so distraught that I figured we had to at least try. So we frantically placed the nest back into the parasol, closed it up, leaned it against the house, and snuck back inside. And within half an hour, a grey squirrel made her way to the nest, crawling through the top of the parasol where she had chewed a hole.

And one by one, she carried those babies out and whisked them away to a new home. The nest had obviously taken a while to make, so I'm not sure what kind of makeshift home she found for her babies, but they all got out.

This is not the first time we have rescued squirrels: in fact, they seem to come to us for help.

When we first moved to Montreal, Maïa attended preschool at the local Y. One afternoon, on his way back from picking up Maïa, Derek spotted a squirrel on the ground. City crews had been out, trimming trees, and this little guy must have had his branch cut out from under him. Derek picked him up, wrapped him in his jacket, placed him in the back of the Chariot, and brought him home. That evening, Derek brought the squirrel to the SPCA, likely so it could be allowed to die peacefully.

As we were leaving Montreal, we held a garage sale on our front lawn (lawn sale??). Toward the end of the afternoon, we spotted two very young squirrels on the lawn. There was something strange about them: they weren't their usual nervous squirrel selves. In fact, they were rather relaxed, which just isn't right for a squirrel. So Derek picked them up, which didn't take much effort, put them in one of the boxes we had out, and brought them to a local animal hospital. The clinic wouldn't take them, but luckily someone there made it their business to rescue and rehabilitate wild urban creatures.

I'm not sure what the conjunction of these three stories says about us, so I'll leave it open, but they are interesting, so thought I'd share.