The first baby at WBR wasn't quite what we expected. Hoping for nesting chimney swifts, we went out to our chimney swift tower to clean it out and get ready for the arrival of chimney swifts. Opening up the trap door at the bottom we discovered a mass of wet and dry leaves along with other nesting material.  Along with the material, out fell a very scared baby squirrel! An adult squirrel scurried away in the neighboring trees and turned to see what was happening. 

With help from one of our volunteers who also volunteers at Wildlife Center of Missouri, we gathered the nesting material, stuffed it in an old bluebird box (didn't have a squirrel box around) and attached it to a tree next to the tower - and then we waited.

Unfortunately mother did not return to move the baby so after a few hours we got him out of his new nest and brought him inside to warm back up. After being wrapped in a warm towel, Lois took him to the wildlife center. The word is the young squirrel will join others his age after getting some extra fluids and being checked out for injuries. Mom was probably young, maybe her first litter, thus only one baby instead of four or five. She may not have had an extra nest close by as many squirrels do.

Missouri Wildlife Center often send birds brought in to their clinic to us, but we rarely have squirrels from our back yard to send to them. Fortunately we both have volunteers that are willing to go an extra mile to help the wildlife in need.

note: the tree branches are about 5 feet away from the tower. We also trimmed a larger branch that was a good jumping off platform!