There’s an abandoned movie studio behind my apartment that has turned into dense greenery, with large trees like banyan, burflower, and mango. It’s home to all kinds of animals like stray cats and dogs, mongooses, civets, rats, snakes, squirrels, monkeys, and various kinds of birds.

My third floor balcony is a bit cluttered, and I don’t use it often either. So they sometimes come there to nest, mainly during the breeding season.

Yesterday, I kept hearing continuous squirrel noises from noon onwards. I searched around but couldn’t find anything. The last time this happened, one had died trying to hide under my washing machine, so I was trying to avoid a repeat of that incident. But this morning, I found one newborn squirrel on my balcony, while two more had fallen onto the sunshade below. I pulled them up using a makeshift cardboard pulley setup and placed all three in a shoebox lined with some grass I found.

They’re extremely young. Their eyes haven’t formed yet and they are barely moving. Their mother hasn’t returned. For now, I gave them a sugar-salt solution (it’s called a pedialyte solution, apparently) using a softened earbud. They managed to drink a little.

I’ve left them on the balcony in case the mother comes back, though that seems unlikely. If she doesn’t, I’ll try to care for them for a while and later release them back once they’re grown.

Here are some pictures I took.