Maggie's Farm

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Sunday, October 8. 2017

Seen a Flying Squirrel lately?

The Southern Flying Squirrel is found throughout the eastern US and southeastern Canada. They inhabit good-sized mature deciduous woodlands.


Because they are entirely nocturnal, you probably don't know whether you have them around or not but if you are neither in, nor on the edge of a forest, you likely do not.  Big eyes, to see in the dark.


Owls eat them. 


Cute little buggers. They use their tails as rudders. I have never seen one in the wild. Have you?



Posted by Bird Dog in Natural History and Conservation at 16:30 | Comments (22) | Trackbacks (0)

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I had one living in the walls of an older house in the Shenandoah Valley area in Virginia. Made the cat crazy at night. Occasionally he would come out in daylight and sit on the couch. Cute little bugger.
#1 jesse bogan on 2017-10-08 17:40 (Reply)
Was camping years age. In my sleeping bag looking out the front of the tent at the fire. A flying squirrel landed inches from my face and darted off into the night.

I think it was as surprised as I was.
#2 Brewmeistr on 2017-10-08 17:41 (Reply)
We have them here in the upstate of South Carolina. I had to "evict" one from a birdhouse I made. It chewed a wren-sized opening into a size that fit it better. Th
#3 anon on 2017-10-08 18:05 (Reply)
Not being in the eastern or southern areas, the only flying squirrel I've seen was Rocky (and his pal Bullwinkle).
#4 Sam L. on 2017-10-08 18:23 (Reply)
Yup, in Stroudsburg PA I saw several we actually ended up with two in our chimneys. liked the heat I guess..
#5 Bill Jones on 2017-10-08 18:37 (Reply)
Of course ! Watched Rocky and bullwinkle for years
#6 Peter on 2017-10-08 19:01 (Reply)
The owner of a bar in Pelican Lake, Wisconsin, rented out 6 or 8 rooms on the second floor for tourists, or in our case fisherman.
Anyway, they had spotlights trained on the mature trees outside the bar window where you could occasionally watch the buggers.
Pretty neat.
#7 uk(us) on 2017-10-08 19:36 (Reply)
We would hear them land on our roof at dusk when we lived in the woods in British Columbia. We were on a steep hillside and we'd run to the windows on the downhill side of the house and watch them take off and glide down to the treeline below us. Sadly I blew one away in our attic (.410 shot) by mistake when we had a pack rat infestation - the only way to convince the rats to move out was to evict them feet first.
#8 David Smith on 2017-10-08 19:45 (Reply)
I have seen a few. Most memorable was straight out of Christmas Vacation. Living in rural southern Minnesota, I was intending to rehang a birdhouse nailed to a cottonwood tree. I pulled it loose and the flying squirrel jumped out and right onto my chest. No telling who was most surprised...
#9 Snowgoose on 2017-10-08 19:55 (Reply)
We had a pet flying squirrel when I was kid. We absolutely loved him. He would sit in our shirt pockets and
eat pecans. His name was Rocky.
#10 Blondj on 2017-10-08 21:04 (Reply)
They made a nest in the attic when I was a kid. One landed on my mom while she was asleep while dad was working night turn down at the steel mill. Pretty good ruckus.
#11 forest on 2017-10-08 21:24 (Reply)
We had an infestation of flying squirrels in our attic years ago when we lived in Andover, Mass. They threw parties shortly after sundown, and scuttled around for hours. One intrepid little guy even traveled through the walls down to the basement.

They reproduced faster than I could trap them up in the rafters. Thought about making a Davey Crockett for myself, suburban wildman that I am.

What Bill Murray was to gophers in Caddyshack, I was to those damn flying squirrels. Nothing worked. Finally, the pest control guys had a stroke of genius: they located the hole in the wall, and put in a one-way gate. Voila - permanent eviction!
#12 Galen Cawley on 2017-10-08 21:52 (Reply)
*Davey Crockett hat, but you get the picture.
#12.1 Galen Cawley on 2017-10-08 21:54 (Reply)
They've slipped into our house a couple of times, does that count?
#13 Fritz Riedel (Link) on 2017-10-09 00:03 (Reply)
I used to lumberjack here in Central Texas. Once we cut down a Hickory tree and when it fell I noticed something moving underneath. A couple of flying squirrels were in a hole in the tree and were apparently stunned when the tree fell.

I saw them up close but didn't try to touch or hurt them. After a few seconds, they ran up the nearest tree and then jumped to another.

I only realized they were flying squirrels when I saw them glide from the first tree to the next.
#14 Dangerous Dean on 2017-10-09 00:07 (Reply)
I have them in Chester County, PA, and they nest in my trees. I learned from my vet that if one finds a fledgling fallen onto the ground to put it in a nest made of an old sock at the top of a stepladder right where it fell. The mother will wait till you are gone and swoop down to the rescue.
#15 Missy on 2017-10-09 00:50 (Reply)
they fly round my back yard
#16 bgarrett on 2017-10-09 08:20 (Reply)
My home in Georgia is next to a "deciduous woodlands" and Little Noonday creek. I put an ear of dried corn on a tree between my two decks to feed the "normal" squirrels. Next morning it was used up. I suspected those little boogers so I put a light on it and, sure enough, they came flying in from all directions. They would take some kernels and fly off into the darkness. They're not afraid of people - you can get within two feet of them. Try it. It's better than watching the NFL.
#17 oolioo (Link) on 2017-10-09 10:38 (Reply)
They're here in NE GA, but seeing them in the wild is rare. I've only seem them two or three times, usually at night.

I found one once in the corner of my office bathroom. Thought he would be jittery like a chipmunk, but I was able to calmly walk right up to him and coax him into a shoebox and take him outside.
#18 LS (Link) on 2017-10-09 11:47 (Reply)
For years we had a group frequent the back yard here on Cape Cod. Built little platforms and they would come every night, up to 11 at one time. You could get very close before they'd scramble up the tree. Some people would get freaked out having them glide around. Went away on vacation about two years ago and they vanished. Last saw one when a head poked out of a bird house I was cleaning, set up new feeding stations in hopes they'd come back but to o avail. Miss the little buggers.
#19 jborden on 2017-10-09 12:14 (Reply)
come visit me. I've had a thriving community living in my attic for twenty years. Can't dissuade them from being there, I've tried. Sealed the house up like Fort Knox, and they still get in and out. They go away in the spring and return in the fall. They keep to themselves, every once is a while one finds it way into the house proper and provides hours of amusement for the cat who watches me run around trying to capture it. They haven't done any harm to anything, so they're welcome to overwinter up there.
#20 gregor on 2017-10-09 12:18 (Reply)
We had similar critters in the Pacific Northwest. Camped out in our rafters, came out through the holes under the eaves, skittered along our cedar siding and took off. Every night.

People would insist there was no such thing in our part of the country ... until they saw them in person.

We live in a forested ravine with heavy rainfall.

Haven't seen them in years. Probably due to the influx of barred owls ... which are also pretty cool.
#21 jimg on 2017-10-09 17:11 (Reply)

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