Meet Squizby

We went on our normal walk on the Town Lake Trail, which consists of parking by Butler Park and taking the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge to the north side, walking east to the Congress Avenue bridge (aka The Ann Richards Bridge), heading south over the bridge, then west to the dog park at Auditorium Shores, watching the dogs until dark and then returning to the car via Butler Park.

Everything was normal until right before we got to the Congress Avenue bridge and we noticed an itty bitty rodenty-looking thing hanging out in the middle of the trail. Upon closer examination we discovered, and quickly named, Squizby. It looked as though he (we are in no way squirrel experts but we decided that Squizby was male) had fallen out of his nest and was very confused.

The Town Lake Hike & Bike Trail is aptly named because people with bikes use it. Some of them go quite fast. We were quite concerned that Squizby would soon become trail-kill so we tried to talk him into returning to the woods along the bank of the river. We hoped that his mother would find him, scold him for talking to strangers and then tuck him safely back into the nest.

He either did not understand human or was stubborn because Squizby did not want to go back into the woods. Heather found some cardboard and picked him up but he slipped and ended up in her lap. He took a liking to her and began gnawing on her shorts. Though she really wanted to take Squizby home and raise it like a son, we agreed that it was best to put him into the woods and hope for the best. Keep your head high Squizby!

Sorry, cell phone pics aren't the clearest