One man’s quest to save an orphaned squirrel, as narrated by David Attenborough

In this delightful 1981 clip from the television programme Wildlife on One (1977-2005), the BBC producer John Paling discovers a male baby grey squirrel abandoned in the Wychwood Forest in Oxfordshire, England. Realising the creature has been left for dead, he decides to raise it alongside his kittens. The squirrel, dubbed ‘Sammy Squitten’, proves both adorable and destructive as it adjusts to domesticated life, and before long Paling begins wondering how best to proceed. Can this semi-domesticated animal ever thrive in nature? Threaded together via warm narration from David Attenborough, Squirrel on My Shoulder proves a wild, entertaining ride that interrogates the boundaries of human and nonhuman animal words.