The black squirrels I saw were descendants of two pairs imported from Japan as breeding pairs for a lakeside cottage property back in the 1800s. The main group is in a fairly small area but ever so often one will show up in the general population of grey squirrels. The greys accept them with no problems. Obviously there was some cross over. There is sometimes talk of eliminating them from the summer visitors but the permanent residents object and the talk goes away for a while. After a hundred years it is probably not going to happen. Sandy

Glad to hear at least 3 of them made it, sorry that last one died. Could have been a number of things that killed the ones in the box and the last one. 90 degree heat should not have killed them. When you clean out the nestbox, if you haven't already look for blowfly larva, they are small grayish black larva that look kinda like a piece of rice except bloated when they are full. I have lost baby Blues to these larva before always later in summer when it is hot. They say less than 10 per baby is ok but more than that and it can kill them. You would defianately see them in the nesting material, most likely on the bottom of the box when you clean it out. Or it could have been pesticides that killed the babies too. People spread it on their lawns to kill insects/weeds and the birds feed the bugs sprayed with the stuff to thier babies and it kills them. Has happened all to often. Sometimes you just don't know what happens. Definately go to silais.org to read lots of info on hosting Bluebird and other native cavity nesting birds. There is load of useful info there! Get that box cleaned out and hopefully Momma Blue will start a new nest in a few days! Donna

haaahaha...i now don't feel so bad knowing that a family of squirrels has taken up residence in my garage. good thing my garage is not attached to the house. but they have torn a huge hole in the back of my garage, and it seems that they are not even scared of me anymore. when i go in the garage, the mother squirrel does not even move from her spot up in the rafters. i swear today that one of them was waiting for me on my back porch....wtf?? thankfully my husband has just bought a giant assault rifle type pellet gun and is excited to use it. the squirrels have done so much damage to our garage, i almost feel like we might as well tear it down and build a new one. they have ripped down ALL the insulation, and the holes are ridiculous. so...good luck to all you squirrel hunters out there...and just remember...they might be cute..BUT THEY ARE STILL RATS!!!!

Aw :( Maybe the mother died.I don't know maybe you could call an wildlife animal rescue and they will take them.