While perusing the cat enclosure and saying my weekly "howdy" to the residents and performing the anticipated "scratching of ears" ritual for the feline group, I finished up and decided to check the cages that held the new arrivals.
First, let me share this experience. Even though these kitties are not wild life, they are, in many cases, feral making them too wild to touch, hold, or get near to. Many have been captured and brought in so they can receive much needed shots and vitamins and will also be spayed or neutered. The volunteers spend time with the newbies talking to and just attempting to get them use to human touch and smell.
Over a period of time, most often the cats and especially the kittens, will become approachable to a point they can be held and integrated into the community enclosure. Not a cage but a huge enclosure with walking ramps, jumping platforms and open cages with baskets filled with soft bedding. Toys are everywhere along with food and the occasion catnip goodie. This is where people are allowed to "socialize" with the cats in anticipation of adoption.
Well, I was checking out the new mom and her litter of tiny fluff balls and right in front of my face was a kitty carrier. Now, I figured it had been used to bring in one of the felines and didn't pay a minute of attention until I heard this scratching sound. I looked up and thought, "there's a rat in here!" The sound stopped and I went back to cooing and kitty talking to mom and the babies when I heard it again but this time when I lifted my eye's to look inside the cage, a brown thing leaped at the cage door. Well, I yelped like a sissy and jumped straight up into the air.
Once my heart stopped racing around and I was brave enough to look inside the cage, there was a tiny baby squirrel! Yep, a baby squirrel who had been hiding in the recesses of the carrier under a blanket. Little fella looked like a flying squirrel. What a cutie. Only a few weeks old and already full of mischief.
Now you'd think that would be enough of a surprise for me, but no, I was in for a double wammie.
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