Squirrel Box

This past winter Albert found her way into the eaves of my house to have babies. This is a common problem with squirrels that I’ve had to deal with before. I was patient with her while the babies were too young to come out, but once they did I closed it off.

She has her own drey in a tree on the other side of the neighbor’s yard, but they have a scary doberman pinscher, and with Two Socks nesting with her I think there was no room for three babies. With the hope of alleviating her need to use my house I set about building one for her.

For years I’ve used Sketchup for this kind of task, so I started playing around in it. I wanted to see what I could get out of some cedar fence planks, which are pretty inexpensive, and with Sketchup I’ll have exact measurements for all my cuts. I went through a couple of designs and settled on the one shown here.

On the inside there is a shelf just inside the entrance. This combined with the baffle on the outside will act a predator guard, preventing critters from easily reaching into the box. Also on the inside I’ve mounted a small camera (Revodata 1706-P-FC-HS) in the upper corner. My only regret with this camera is that it has no microphone, but at least I can see the state of things inside the box.

So that she’ll know the strange box that will appear up in a tree came from me, I introduced her to it in our basement. She often comes in the window for snacks while we’re watching TV.

I’ve placed it 20’ up in one of our trees and connected it to my camera network. It’s taken a full two weeks for any of the squirrels to get close to it. Most have been taking a wide berth around it, and Albert still hasn’t checked it out.

But, yesterday Shiloh briefly explored the inside, and then this morning brought her brother to see it too. They were so comfortable in there that they playfully wrestled about for a good three minutes.