It was a sunny day in February in 2013. I was taking an afternoon nap with my balcony door open. When I woke up it was around 6ish so i shut the balcony door and went to check my phone. As I walked towards my table I was surprised by a rustling sound coming from under the bed. I took a look and found a baby squirrel quivering in the corner. This animal wasn't the large, bushy-tailed, grey squirrel you find in America. It was an Indian Palm Squirrel, which looks more like a chipmunk. I thought it was a helpless and harmless creature so I reached forward to pick it up. Apparently it had other ideas, because it darted away from my hand and made for my closet. Picking up that this was no helpless infant, I grabbed a butterfly net to pursue it. After an animated half-an-hour chase I had finally caught the little guy. I took some time to inspect the squirrel and deduced that it was a 1-2 month old male. I knew that squirrels are strictly diurnal (active during the day) animals so releasing it was not an option as it was already dark. I decided to wait till the next morning to release it. I put some dried grass and some moist cotton in a cardboard box, and then poked some air holes in the box. I then tried transferring the squirrel into the box but it nipped at my finger, trying to bite me. I put on some thick snow gloves and put the squirrel into the box. I kept the box in my room overnight.
The next morning I decided to check on the squirrel so I opened the box and peeked inside. Suddenly the squirrel jumped through the gap, ran up my arm and leaped behind the bookshelf. I looked for him but evidently he had disappeared. Luckily my room door was closed so I knew he couldn't have gotten out. I called my parents in and we proceeded to turn my room inside out looking for the squirrel. We emptied the bookshelves, moved aside all the furniture and checked in every possible place, but we just couldn't find him. Finally we decided to wait it out. I went into my room periodically hoping to see some movement or hear some noise. In the mean time, we could all hear the high pitched squeaks of an adult squirrel outside our house. That cleared my doubts about whether our squirrel was an orphan. Around 1:00 in the afternoon, I went into my room again to find the baby squirrel climbing on the balcony window. I quickly opened the window and the squirrel jumped to freedom. In about 10 minutes the high pitched squeaks stopped, possibly indicating that the baby had found its mother.
My suspicions were confirmed the next day when I saw the mother and baby running together on the roof of my house. This whole episode just goes to show that animals don't need humans as much as we think they do. Apart from keeping the squirrel safe for one night, I did virtually nothing. The baby relied purely on its instincts to find its mother and everything worked out perfectly. I still see that squirrel around my house sometimes, climbing a tree or scaling a wall. I can tell it's him because he has a slightly crooked tail. Now he's almost an adult and soon he may have babies of his own.
Nature knows what it's doing but sometimes it needs a little help from us. It's our job to do just what is needed; no more, no less.
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