Faith's Enclave News - Squirrel Karma prt Two

Squirrel Karma…Part Two…Pay Back

I have to live a life being taught lessons by fate, the universe, God... And part of hubby’s and my life lesson is Squirrel Karma...

We have abundant hawks in the neighborhood. Last year, two pair nested in very close proximity and ate everything alive in the entire block and fought over kills. It was amazing watching three hawks going after the same critter.

This year, we have hawk nest close by, but I haven’t spotted it yet. It’s a redbrested hawk, and gorgeous. But they eat squirrels. Note the previous part one…

On Tuesday, one of our nesting hawks stole a juvie squirrel from his nest. And the war in the heavens was on! I never saw anything like it. Birds (mostly Cardinals, but some sparrows, a few tits, and others) came from everywhere and dive-bombed the hawk. Really. He dropped his dinner in a pile of leaves. The birds then chased him off!

The juvie squirrel, bloody and terrified, pulled leaves over himself and hid. Several hours later, I went looking. It was still alive, and I really didn’t expect that. In fact, I figured the best (or worst) I could expect, was to have to put it out of its misery. I was sooo not looking forward to that.

But Hawkbait was still alive. So I carefully got a box, a pair of old sweatpants and a shovel and lifted him into the box. It screamed piteously, moved as if its leg was broken. Its ear was all bloody and in a strange place on its head, lopped over. Maybe half torn off. But Hawkbait crawled into the sweatpants and hid. I figured that was all it could take for one day – being stolen, kidnapped, flying through the air dangling, dropped, and shoveled – so I left it alone with some raisons and water. I could splint the leg in the morning.

Sunrise saw Hawkbait moving fine on its leg, it had groomed all the blood off and found a way into the pants to sleep. I had no idea how *adult* my juvie was. Based on comments from my yahoo group, I had to say it was still nursing. And I went into full-blown *save the squirrel* mode. I made up milk, added sugar, a hint of salt, and got a gloves and a dropper. And called Hubby to help. He was not happy.

Hubby said, "If that squirrel grows up and eats my wiring harness, I’ll be ticked off."

Today and again tonight, I/we successfully fed Hawkbait a milk mixture through a dropper and it has now eaten about 10 to 15 milliliters of the fluid at each feeding. (Some dribbled out.) It grabs
the dropper with both front hands and sucks hard. It is so cute!!! I never had a baby, but I am proud as a mommy! My baby is eating!

The red-breasted hawk has been flying over the area where he dropped the baby squirrel. Hubby saw him land near the spot where I rescued Hawbait and fluff the leaves! No birds came to chase him away. My baby would be dead by now if I hadn’t rescued it.

Of course Hubby still *hates* squirrels. And my totem animal is the hawk. Am I conflicted? Oh yeah! I have a new pet.

I wanted a puppy.

Later, Ya’ll.

Faith