The squirrel stand-off continues, with a twist.
It’s been in residence just inside the damper of my fireplace for 3 or 4 days now, venturing out when I’m not around. I’ve been enabling this behavior, of course, by making sure there was clean water and some crackers for it. But any time I come around, it zips back up into the flue.
And then this morning, I discovered newborn baby squirrels in the fireplace. I immediately understood why it wouldn’t leave, but was puzzled as to why it left them alone there in the corner of the fireplace. They weren’t covered or anything – I covered them up with some shredded paper that I had handy so they’d be a bit warmer, but I wasn’t sure what else to do. So, I called the Animal Welfare League. This evening they came by and took the tiny babies with them — concerned that they weren’t as warm as they should be — but they didn’t have any way to get the mother out. There’s also a concern that she might have more babies up inside the flue.
Their advice was to give it another day and hope that the mother, seeing that her babies are gone, will leave the way she came in.
In the meantime, I need to get a contractor out here to put a new chimney cap on the stack. It’s only February… I can imagine the wildlife stampede that’s about to take up residence in my flue.
