are back in the blue bird nesting box. This makes the third year so I guess they get a homestead exemption from here on out.
They make good neighbors so I don't mind.

Time for me to make another trip to Colemanland, as I've never seen flying squirrels before. I've seen you Mickey, and you're worth the trip alone!

Mr. Coleman, do Flying Squirrels look the same as say, Pine, Fox or Gray Squirrels, or are they markedly different?

I'm not sure if we even have them here in the Ohio Valley..?

Very soft delicate fur. The one that was in our home had fur in a herringbone pattern.

Very nocturnal.

Just be glad their outside and not in your house. Their cute, but nasty as rats. They crap and urinate everywhere. We have had to eradicate them the past 2 years from the cabin at our hunting club.

When I lived on Long Island I used to see them gliding from tree to tree. Pretty cool to watch.

It's just plain ol' 'Mickey' or 'Mick'. Thanks. I'll try to post a picture I have of one in the box. They don't take well to disturbances so I probably won't open the box again. I was checking to see if blue birds had laid eggs and one jumped out and ran up the light pole. I hated that I disturbed them again.

Here's a picture that I took last summer.

They have a stubby little tail and are really pretty small.

We have them here as I have found them frequently in Matern cubbies--but I have never seen one alive. I keep looking.

The reason many poeple never see them is they are largely nocturnal

It was a complete surprise to me when I discovered they were in this area. I'd never heard of any in my lifetime.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_flying_squirrel

supposedly they are in Montana but never seen one but we dont have a ton of nut trees......used to keep sugar gliders which are a small Australia possum that acts like a flying squirrel though has a different diet....

These pesky Ebert's out here eat the lining of the new tips/shoots on ponderosas - usually way up there - leave the ground around the tree littered with new growth chewed off. They fly too - vertically, in one direction. Well, maybe call it coasting - or falling.

I muzzleloader hunted out of my buddy's camp up in Sinnemahoning Pa one time. They had a big feeder hanging off the side of the cabin on it's second story catwalk. The flying squirrels would be on it every night. They'd glide into the feeder, you'd see it jiggle a bit outside the window, and they'd feed to their heart's content. Interesting little critters, and I enjoyed watching them very much.

I was surprised to hear about them down your way too. I've only encountered them in the Coastal Plain over Charleston/Savannah way.

Got this one on a trail cam this yr.

They remind me of our red squirrels in size and shape except the head is rounder and the fur is much softer.

I've mistakenly killed 2 flying squirrels in my life and still kick my butt for it. Now I make darned sure that what I'm targeting is a red squirrel and not a flying squirrel.

In the middle of one night in the late 1930s, Dad heard an intermittent series of soft bumps back in the spare bed room. When he carried a lamp back there, he saw nothing moving. When he went back to bed, he heard the bumps again.

So he went back there without the lamp and just sat waiting there in the moon-lit bed room.

After a while, a flying squirrel � which had apparently dropped down the chimney � ran across the bed and launched itself toward the glass upper half of the door to the side porch. (The full moon in a cloudless sky made the outside almost as bright as day.)

The bump � bump were the squirrel hitting the door glass and the floor.

Dad opened the side-porch door and screen, left 'em open, and went back to bed.

No more soft bump � bump.

"Flying" squirrels are so nocturnal that they're seldom seen even where they're relatively plentiful.

That's too bad � because they're about the cutest little critters that we have in the wild. And I don't know of any way that they harm anything or bother anybody.

these are the sugar gliders aka flying possums i used to keep though these arent my pics:



momma with a big baby sticking out of the pouch




mine loved me setting them either on top of the door or on the tall head board and stepping back aways so they could jump to me.....the one male i had took a few years off my life one time though....

hell, there's an evolutionary path we really need.

Flying fricking possums, standard size...

Shreiden --you have really nice finger nails.

i said they werent my pics

..but you didn't deny the fingernails. Still haven't, come to think of it.

lol i work on printing presses.....my hands dont look that nice.....think ive got ink permanately embedded in my skin like a tattoo

So, we're falling back on the "work on printing presses" story are we? We have our eyes on you, Sheriden. Did you ever grow any Maypops? They grow wild down here so since you're at "loose ends" maybe this is where you should be.

nope never got any to survive our winters which is where i knew the problem was gonna be.....only problem with your AO Mickey is me and humidity dont get along very well.....hot and humid makes for hard breathing.....as much as i would love to chase snakes and such down around you....

Rattler--just jerkin your chain--I gotta brother that has been a printer in western Minn for the last 40 years--his hands look like they been run thru a meat grinder.

i know and took it as such

It ain't humid down here but it really gets muggy at times. If you change your mind let me know.

you realize ive been born and raised in a place thats a couple inches of annual rainfall from being declared desert but would like to check out your part of the country.....closest ive been is the Hog Hunt in Tennessee and when we took the girls to all the parks in Orlando.....neither really allowed me to explore.....

You're always welcome....if you can put up with the dogs.

I didn't know Oregon had em till a few years back. Saw the cat pounce from the roof onto a 2x8 shelf outside the front windows and I knew he'd caught something. I went out and told him to give it up which he's good at since he's usually just showing off his skills anyway. So he lets me take it and I saw those huge eyes and said WTF is this furry little thing? After a sec I figured it out and wanted to set it free away from the cat. Worried that it might be injured and easily caught again instead of releasing it on a Doug Fir branch I walked 25' to a big Ceder with it's maze of inter-crossing branches that would give the cat fits. Well after 10' the little guy had enough and latched onto a knuckle, I tried to ignore it but at 20' he bit down harder and I dropped that sucker just feet away from the cedar branch. He hit the ground running and got away safe. I see the house lights reflecting off their eyes now and then in the trees, probably never will see em sailing until I get an infrared camera going.