Caught a Flying Squirrel !


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Old 02-07-18, 10:39 AM
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Caught a Flying Squirrel !

So Last night I set up my Small have a heart trap near the compost which usually catches rats and mice. However I went back out a little later and found this BUG EYE bushy tailed fury little guy. I noticed his extra webbing and fur I thought it couldn't be a flying creature ? I didn't think they existed in the north east well sure enough after I looked him up it was. So I let him go.
Anybody ever catch one?
PS I think this was a very young one
 
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Old 02-07-18, 10:53 AM
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Northern Flying Squirrel - Glaucomys sabrinus - NatureWorks They, the Southern, and the Humbolt are just about everywhere there are old forests in North America.

I remember when we were having a late party on the deck in VA. Lights were mostly off to keep from drawing bugs. Someone said "Well look at that!" There on a tree, not 10 ft from us were 2 flyers, working their way over to a bird feeder I guess. Someone actually approached and handed some sort of food to one of them, pretzel IIRC...they never moved except to take the piece of pretzel. Looked back 5 min later and they were gone. Cute little buggers!
 
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Old 02-07-18, 11:17 AM
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The wife regretfully caught one a couple of years ago. She unlatched one of the wren houses to clean it out and a very strange looking squirrel popped out the hole and up the tree. I happened to be standing there, and we both thought that it was probably hiding nuts, so she continued while I tried to see where the squirrel was hiding up above. Just about the time she opened the side and said "oh oh" I spotted it flattened out against the trunk. Looking over to see what the "oh oh" was I saw the baby on the ground. At the same time I was figuring out that it wasn't a mutant squirrel but a flying one. I had seen plenty of them over the years, but, like you, had not seen nor heard of any within a hundred or so miles of us. Anyway, the wife carefully picked up the baby and some of the nest material, carefully tucked it back in the nest, and it's mom moved it that night, so we hoped they made out okay.
 
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Old 02-07-18, 11:42 AM
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Years ago I had a feeder set up for my chickens. I found a hole chewed in the top, so thinking it was rats or red squirrels (which we have hundreds and are a huge pest) I set 2 rat traps on top of the corn. The next day there were 2 flying squirrels in there. Depressed me a lot. Never seen one before that, Only seen one since.
 
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Old 02-08-18, 03:53 AM
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We have both Red and Flying Squirrels in our rural area.
Red squirrels are fairly destructive and have an ongoing removal process for them.
Flying Squirrels however do not damage property and we encourage them to stick around by feeding them.
A feeder is made by installing cut off finishing nails into a small piece of wood .
An orange cut in half is forced onto the nails and the board is tied to a tree.
(Bagged expired oranges can be had for free or quite cheep at a grocery store.)
Here, this feeder will only attract Flying Squirrels and some song birds, other critters leave it alone.

Red Squirrels tend to climb a tree then jump from branch to branch in the canopy to move along, Flying Squirrels will climb a tree then glide down to the next tree, climb back up then glide to the next tree.
Not that efficient but a lot of fun to watch.

Edit:
I too once accidentally eradicated a Flying Squirrel and try to make sure it doesn't happen again.
 
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Old 02-08-18, 04:02 AM
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Lat summer while fixing a hole in the roof of cabin a flying squirrel flew out of the hole. Nearly scared the living crap out of me.
 
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Old 02-08-18, 04:31 AM
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To be clear for some folks Flying Squirrels don't actually fly........They are only able to glide.
This is why they must climb to the top of a tree (or a cabin) then jump off of it to then glide down to the ground or another tree.
 
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Old 02-08-18, 04:42 AM
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It's probably been 50 yrs or more since I've seen a flying squirrel. I live in the woods and rarely see even a grey squirrel. I think maybe they were hunted to near extinction yrs ago. Flying squirrels are something neat to see .... as long as they don't surprise you like they did Norm
 
 

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