Sky Squirrels

I always knew flying squirrels lived among us, probably of the southern variety, in the trees at our cabin-in-the-woods in central Virginia. But those buggers are hard to spot. They’re night-owls, first of all, and they’re pretty small. So, I was delighted to see a whole nest of them in our woodshed this winter. (Okay, truth is my husband found them when I wasn’t there one weekend and bragged about his discovery, and I only got to see them by pics and video. Had I been there, I surely would have plucked one out of that nest and kissed it on its little velvety head, so perhaps it’s best I was elsewhere.)

When I saw there were numerous squirrels tucked into the nest together, I assumed they must be pups (also called kits, funnily enough) and thought, huh, why would they have babies during this cold, hungry season? Then I read that the adults commonly come together in the winter to stay warm; nests have been spotted packed with as many as 50 of the things. (This one had eight or ten.)

They don’t actually fly, of course; they have this flap of loose skin on each side of the body attaching fore leg to hind leg, and it creates and airfoil so they can glide in a downward direction (steering with their tail), usually 25 feet or so but sometimes more than 200, or so I’ve read. They have white bellies and pink ears and glorious huge eyes allowing them to see in the dark, all of which makes them extra cute. (Big eyes is one of those traits we humans especially love in other creatures, for some reason.)

Flying squirrels have an impressive repertoire of calls, more than any other type of squirrel, with some utterances out of the human range of hearing. If I’d actually been there with the nest I would have recorded these calls, but I wasn’t, so I couldn’t, so I’ll attach someone else’s recording of their chirps. (Scroll down to “Voice.”)

I’m hoping next time I’m at our cabin the nest is still there, overflowing with little warm bodies. At times like these when the world feels like its imploding, it’s comforting to find wild things living their lives as if nothing is wrong.

Photo by John Holland, that lucky duck