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Flying Squirrels

6ShotsOr5?

6ShotsOr5?

NBRSA TSRA NRA
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My wife and I learned some things about flying squirrels last night.
  1. The Southern Flying Squirrel is common across a wide range in the southeastern and south central USA, including in our neighborhood. After living in the greater Houston area for well over 50 years, I saw the first one I’ve ever seen last night. It turns out they are very nocturnal, and I don’t spend much time in the woods after dark.
  2. They have bad manners. They will enter your house without an invitation, given any opportunity.
  3. Flying squirrels don’t respect gravity. If you have one on the loose in your house, you have to look on the walls as well as under the furniture. They really love to hide on drapes. Also, when you knock them off the drapes about head high they can soar a surprising distance before touchdown, hence the name…
  4. They can be herded. With my wife acting as a blocker, ours made a not-so-sharp, skidding turn out the front door.
During all the excitement, we failed to photograph the critter; however, my wife found some tracks near a fireplace, which fostered one theory about how it came in.
 

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For a couple years after I moved in my house, I'd walk outside in the winter and kept hearing some sort of noise in the trees in the dark. Sounded like someone was throwing a wet rag at the bark. Finally turned the back porch light on to figure out it was the flying squirrels back and forth to the bird feeder.
 
6ShotsOr5? said:
My wife and I learned some things about flying squirrels last night.
  1. The Southern Flying Squirrel is common across a wide range in the southeastern and south central USA, including in our neighborhood. After living in the greater Houston area for well over 50 years, I saw the first one I’ve ever seen last night. It turns out they are very nocturnal, and I don’t spend much time in the woods after dark.
  2. They have bad manners. They will enter your house without an invitation, given any opportunity.
  3. Flying squirrels don’t respect gravity. If you have one on the loose in your house, you have to look on the walls as well as under the furniture. They really love to hide on drapes. Also, when you knock them off the drapes about head high they can soar a surprising distance before touchdown, hence the name…
  4. They can be herded. With my wife acting as a blocker, ours made a not-so-sharp, skidding turn out the front door.
During all the excitement, we failed to photograph the critter; however, my wife found some tracks near a fireplace, which fostered one theory about how it came in.
Click to expand...
I've lived at, or near my current home most of my life, and have spent thousands of hours in my little patch of woods...although I cannot recall a time I've been out at night lighting up the tree canopy with a flashlight previous to last October when I was tracking a pair of Barred Owls. Lo and behold, for the first time in my life I spotted a flying squirell. It came through the trees faster than most birds, flared out on a diaginal tree limb, and didn't slow down a bit as it transitioned to running up the tree. After a bit of playing around, I got a few good captures on my trail cams...
 

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As a kid we used to trap them with home made traps.
Large juice can with a flattened soup can as a lid, strips of inner tube and a trigger from a coat hanger.
Smoked the cans in fire.
Placed the trap in a tree fork overnight with half a pecan on the trigger.
Cute little things.
 
They are interesting creatures, I hung a treestand unknowingly in a tree they were living in. The first time hunting that stand it probably looked like I was suffering a seizure as I kept looking around trying to figure out where the rustling was coming from as it was getting dark. Turned out it was just them heading out for the night!!
 
As a kid squirrel hunting i shot one, thought he was dead. Put it in my vest pack and later when i shot another ,

twisting to get it in the pack on my back the Vampire azz flying ball of anger was perched on my shoulder inches from my face ... Breathing blood bubbles, mouth agape. Fangs glistening ....

i learned how to do the Egyptian dance neck & head move that day.

My friend grabbed him by the tail and snatched him away .... Since that day squirrels get a knife point in the brain and a tail check for the trimmers.

Oh....and don't shoot the flying vampire ones !
 
6ShotsOr5? said:
My wife and I learned some things about flying squirrels last night.
  1. The Southern Flying Squirrel is common across a wide range in the southeastern and south central USA, including in our neighborhood. After living in the greater Houston area for well over 50 years, I saw the first one I’ve ever seen last night. It turns out they are very nocturnal, and I don’t spend much time in the woods after dark.
  2. They have bad manners. They will enter your house without an invitation, given any opportunity.
  3. Flying squirrels don’t respect gravity. If you have one on the loose in your house, you have to look on the walls as well as under the furniture. They really love to hide on drapes. Also, when you knock them off the drapes about head high they can soar a surprising distance before touchdown, hence the name…
  4. They can be herded. With my wife acting as a blocker, ours made a not-so-sharp, skidding turn out the front door.
During all the excitement, we failed to photograph the critter; however, my wife found some tracks near a fireplace, which fostered one theory about how it came in.
Click to expand...
We had them at the cottage ( Manitoba Canada. Never ever in the cottage - they seem to timid.
 
akajun said:
they make good pets,
Click to expand...

MANY years ago, in a time long forgotten, my girlfriend's mother had a colony that lived in her house- she wasn't weird, promise.

OK, they had a very expensive mid-century modern home. She had a large cage with a large hollow tree trunk inside. The squirrels pretty much had the run of the house. The interior design of the house was perfect for them and made for interesting squirrel watching.

I've been running deer cameras for close to 30 years and I caught Flying Squirrels on camera for the first time this year.
 
Most I've seen have been in dead standing trees. They nest in the upper portion of dead trees in cavities. I've pushed a few over in the past and had a family of flying squirrels scatter from the cavity and run up other trees to safety.
 
I spotted them before long ago in the woods in GA shining ‘coons at night. Hunted those same woods in the daylight for yrs and never saw one when the daylight.
 
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