Baby Squirrels in Nest

I always enjoyed coaxing squirrels out of the trees or across a loan to try to get them to eat out of my hand. And I succeeded many times.  It was always a special relationship to

When I started to save sick, injured or orphaned baby squirrels as a part of the animal rehab place I volunteered at, I was their mother.  I nursed them back to health and watched them grow, some of them from the neophyte stage - hairless, eyes not even developed, and so small it was nothing short of astonishing that they were alive - and opened their mouths and nursed with vigor 10x beyond their size.

Here's a neonate that is already furring. I have had them before they're even at this stage. They are about the size of your palm when cupped at this point:

As I nurtured them through every stage till they could eat solid foods and be given to another rehabber for the next stage of acclimation to the outdoors so they could be released back into the wild, I began to have a real curiosity about how they were raised by their own mothers.  I can identify squirrel nests from a mile away, a large leaf covered globe - with a roof not just a bottom part like birds -- or in some even more mysterious hole in a hollow tree - and always wondered what went on in there.

There are so very few pictures of them. People know I'm a squirrel nut so send me videos and pictures and cards galore - I've seen them all, multiple times. But I got this the other day and it was a first.


I love seeming those little babies all curled together, their fur so shiny, their soft little heads, just as they were in my fleece-lined cereal bowls that I made to mock a warm, cozy nest.

I need to Google some kind of Squirrel Nest Cam - not sure if there is one because they would most likely not pick a spot that'd been tampered with… If you know of any, or have any more pictures like this, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!