Trio of baby squirrels are among first cute baby patients of the season

Squirrel triplets Charley, Harry and Alfie were going to be put down but are now being reared at Foxy Lodge in Hemsby. Picture: Nick Butcher (Image: Archant © 2018)

These adorable baby squirrels are being nurtured at Foxy Lodge wildlife rescue in Hemsby.

The sibling trio, two boys and a girl, have been regally named after they were delivered to the hospital’s door in Newport Road from King’s Lynn - a 140 mile mercy mission that has saved their lives.

John Garner, who runs the wildlife wards with his wife Tonia, said he understood Foxy Lodge was one of only a handful of places with a special Government licence to both rear and release the non-native species.

He said the animals were found at the bottom of a tree by a member of the public and taken to a local vets.

Squirrell triplets Charley, Harry and Alfie were going to be put down but are now being reared at Foxy Lodge in Hemsby.Picture: Nick Butcher (Image: Archant © 2018)

Because they knew permission was needed there was talk of putting them to sleep, Mr Garner said.

But thanks to a resourceful nurse who managed to identify Foxy Lodge as one of the few places with the right paperwork they have been saved.

Mr Garner said grey squirrels had an undeserved reputation as villains of the woodland world and marauders of the reds, but they deserved to live like anything else.

At just a couple of weeks old the babies were doing well, demanding five feeds a day - and they have to be from the same person.

Squirrell triplets Charley, Harry and Alfie were going to be put down but are now being reared at Foxy Lodge in Hemsby.Picture: Nick Butcher (Image: Archant © 2018)

Mr Garner, 58, a retired railway signalman, said two people using different techniques - whether it be the tilt of an arm or the angle of the syringe - would put the animals off.

“Some of them like to be on their front and some like to be held on chests, and you have to be very quick to find out which. It is quite a skill,” he said.

The squirrels are among the first summer babies on the wards at Foxy Lodge with baby rabbits and blackbirds among the more usual admissions.

All being well they should be released at 14 weeks old.

Among the resident animals that will stay with them forever are Daisy the deer that thinks shes a dog, a dove that can’t balance, a one-legged pigeon and a sprinkling of jackdaws and crows.