Urgent squirrel nest situation

dolmar76

TreeHouser
Joined
Nov 5, 2015
Messages
14
Location
Lincoln
Doing a removal.

There's a squirrel nest in the top, with at least one adult squirrel in it and maybe babies. It's about 40 feet up. Came down for a while to see if they will evacuate.

Don't really want to get up there and poke at it for fear of an angry squirrel attack or is that even a thing?

Please advise.

Thanks,
Aaron

IMG_1677.jpg
 
No nest experience here. I did cut a chunk awhile back at about 40 feet on a removal...when it hit the ground 4 adult squirrels exploded out of it. Two ran to other trees, one just lay there..thought it was dead. My son approached it with an axe, thinking to do a coupe de grace and that one came back to life and headed for the woods.

The last one came back 40' up the tree and met me. I saw him coming and wasn't sure whether to sh**t or go blind. I drew my Silky and prepared for a tree fight. Rocky went to the other side of the tree and disappeared. That was a worse feeling than seeing him tearing up the tree! The tree was hollow and I could only guess he snuck back in the holler while I was looking around the trunk for him.

I made the next cut wondering if he was going to bust out of there while I was cutting and start a real fight. Got the chunk cut, pushed it off and when it hit the ground Rocky exploded out and headed for his buddies in the woods. Crazy ass squirrel...survived TWO tumbles inside a hollow log from 35-40 feet. They are tough critters.

I would not not want to mess with a mama squirrel.
 
Funny story, Gary.

I would approach with caution. Rabbies and all that.
 
I once saw one riding down a crane pic and he jumped from about 20 feet to the ground and bolted. It was rather comical, his posture and what not.
 
Fluffy tailed rats. I feel bad if I discover babies in a nest I've bombed out but I get over it. Part of this distaste is from my early years when the bastards had time to climb up. They would get up there and piss down on me!!
 
I've never encountered an aggressive squirrel in a tree, even those with a nest of babies, and they usually bail pretty quick in my experience. We don't inspect nests for babies but if we find survivors on the ground we put 'em in a bucket and call a local guy who raises them. My squirrel raising days are over, when ol' Pearl the squirrel goes to the great pecan tree in the sky, I don't think I'll try and replace her.
 
At least they are easy to kill.
Call my sissy but I can't do that.
Some time I'm very bothered, because it's either killing it (them) or leave it around and most likely condemn it to death by cats or cold. Always birds up there until now. The first isn't possible, so it's the last but I fell very miserable.

So, as it was a work in progress, how it ended with the squirrels?
 
Growing up my uncle made a great squirrel stew. One would shoot at the nest and when they'd come out running, the other would knock'em down for the dog to bring back.
 
I think that was a pretty good description of the older male members here, myself included.
 
Re the OP, IME the adult squirrels will always flee if you are near the nest, then you can check for babies in the nest. If you find them, the best solution is to lower them and the nest down intact and put it out of the way for duration of the job, then put it where the tree was and mama will return soon after things quiet down to retrieve babies and take them to an alternate nest. It the nest gets blown apart accidentally, gathering the babies and nest back together and then doing the above procedure usually works very well.
 
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