Flying squirrel video

Finally, I was able to get a somewhat decent video of the flying squirrels pigging out at the bird feeder tonight! The lighting is not great, but you will certainly get the gist of how active they are. This is the first time I've seen more than 1 flying squirrel at a time in many weeks. I hope you enjoy this video of my little rodent friends getting their fill on this snowy January night.

Nighttime hijinks at the bird feeder

This evening I turned on the lights at the back deck just to see how things looked outside, and I found a three-ring circus taking place in the trees. Flying squirrels were everywhere! I've never seen so many at once. I counted at least 6 at one time, but I bet there were more.


See all the little dots that are under the feeder? That's seed that's getting spilled by these hungry rascals.




The word has definitely been spread that our feeders are THE place to dine. They are very vocal, making all kinds of squeaks. It's no wonder everyone knows to come here.


They were on all the feeders, and in all of the perimeter trees around the deck. I was sitting outside to take these photos, and actually felt surrounded at times. I was half expecting one to land on me. I think I've mentioned before that they are pretty fearless, and they run right along the deck railings just a few feet in front me. We can even swivel around the shepherd's hooks that hold the feeders, and they won't budge. The freakiest thing this evening was when I could hear one running around on the underside of the deck... somewhere, unseen, under my feet...


Flying squirrels are extremely fast-moving creatures. They hop, scurry and fly to get where they want to go. This one landed on the window screen, then made its way over to the siding before it flew over to a neighboring tree.


Preparing for take-off. I've not yet caught a photo of a flying squirrel in flight. One of these days...




You can see from these photos that they blend in pretty well with the trees. Much more so than their non-flying counterparts. Dave brought up a good point the other night: if they blend so well from this angle, why is their belly fur so white? The only reason I could come up with is that it would serve to startle whoever they might be flying at. Although, I just thought of another reason... maybe it has something to do with helping them see where they're trying to land when they fly... like the white on their bellies reflects off of the surface they're aiming for. That's a long shot, especially on a night when there's no moonlight, but with those big eyes of theirs, I'd say their night vision has to be pretty good. Anyone else got any ideas about this?


Look how fat he's getting on our seed! Oy!

Creatures of the night

All kinds of interesting creatures live in our woods, but I would imagine we do not see, or know about the existence of, many of them because they only come out at night.

One of said creatures is the flying squirrel. When it comes to eating bird seed, these little buggers pick up where their larger non-flying cousins leave off during the day! Note that none of these photos are cropped. I'm always surprised at how close I'm able to get to them, and they really just don't seem to care. They seem pretty fearless of humans, from my experience.

"I'll be leaving now. I have to save some seed for later tonight!"

Preparing to launch off into the dark of night. Unfortunately I've never captured any images of them in flight.

"Gimme a kiss!"

We got lots of different moths at night, as I'm sure most of you do. I noticed this one clinging to the screen door the other night, but he got spooked as I opened the door and landed on the deck. This is a male Polyphemus moth.

I had to nudge him a little to get him to open his beautiful wings.

Either he was tired, or didn't feel threatened enough, because he still didn't show the big "eyes" in his wings.

A gentle stroke on his back got a little more of reaction. Isn't he fantastic looking? The wing span on this guy was probably 5" at the widest point.

These very large, fluffy antenna are what mark this as a male. They would be less pronounced on the female.

This close-up shows how fuzzy he looks.

And here's a cropped shot to show off those antenna.

A crop of the large "eye" in the wing. One of nature's finer examples of perfect beauty.

One website I came across when I Googled "Polyphemus moth" was Butterflies and Moths of North America, which is very similar to the Bird Guide on the Cornell Lab site in that it has occurrence maps, species accounts, checklists, and photographs. I checked out the range map for this moth in Ohio, and it does not show any record of Polyphemus moths in Athens County. As a result, I will be emailing the coordinator of such information for the state of Ohio to let him know of this sighting. This will be my first contribution to moth/butterfly citizen science! Cool!