I'm guessing not a whole lot of you will contribute additional pictures to this post. For nearly 60 years I've had go-rounds with northern flying squirrels.More often than not, these encounters have been positive. Even here in Idaho where they are a protected species, I have them periodically on my bird feeders, but only on the darkest nights.

Seems the flying squirrels liked nesting and rearing their young in my boreal owl nest boxes in interior Alaska. Every year I'd have a couple boxes that were used by flying squirrels rather than owls. The flyers were not near as destructive as the red squirrels on the boxes.



Pretty common during some years to catch a few squirrels in the marten sets. One year near Fairbanks, I caught 72 flying squirrels. They are considered a harvestable species in Alaska. I had a small market for fly-tyers, as their fur makes fantastic dubbing for wet-flies.



Seems in deciduous, mixed, or coniferous forests, a Victor rat trap hung on the side of a tree baited with peanut butter is a good way to catch flying squirrels.

They were a subject I never discussed at home..lol

From time to time they were in the trees around our home. Sure have silky fur.

Except me...I can contribute !

I have them all over here. They fly onto the trees at night to my bird feeders. They even touch off motion sensor lights. They love the blue bird houses (that tree and violet green swallows and chickadees always use ) There's even a couple that are in use year round. I never take the moss crammed into the boxes out, because they are in there.

Here's a few pics of one tolerating me to take some shots of him. He even let me touch his tail. I simply cannot NOT touch, if I possibly can

I've had commissions to draw them on occasion, the colour art is the Fur Takers of America auction they had me do several years ago.

One man, in the city of New Jersey, even put my art on all his ADC rigs , including the flyer.

I really like that close up of yours, and as always, thank you for your educational info, sir Jack .

Ha! I should have known Sharon! Once again, you've come through with artwork putting my meager photos to shame. Both of your pen-and-ink renditions are absolutely beautiful. That one of the flyer departing the hole is priceless. Love it!

Jack

Doing tree work for over 35 years I’ve run into a nest every couple of years it seems . You think of them as only being tree dwellers but after cutting a dead hickory years ago I came to realize they must spend some time on the ground . This tree was at least a 150 yards from the timber edge, I don’t think any of them made it even half way back to the trees by gliding. I had removed the top 1/2 of the tree though.

Quite a few years ago I found this on the lawn and didn't know (wasn't sure) what it was.




A few nights later I threw the flashlight on my bird feeder and there he was.

Great photos and artwork!

Like Sharon experiences, we have them frequently living in our bluebird houses. About 5 of 50 houses have fliers. We have also had them at our bird feeders at night. They are unusual in that their eyes reflect red at night. One or two tiny red eyes in a tree will be a flier.

Occasionally I get a call for ADC work that turns out to be fliers. I have a few fun videos of them gliding by cameras. I exclude them and seal up the openings.

They were my favorite species to deal with when I had an ADC business. I could bare hand them. They could pinch but never had one strong enough to break the skin. They were the only squirrel species in my area that would create toilets. Their smell was powerful on a large infestation, but that made it easy to diagnose. They were also fun because they would fill up a multicatch trap. In fact, they were so little that their only hope of survival overnight in a trap during the winter was to get a bunch of buddies in there with them. If you only singles or doubles they were usually dead by the time the trap was checked the next day. They could fit into holes the size of a quarter so great money making a house flying squirrel proof as well.

During my small mammal flea collecting there was one that lived for 4 years, and the re-captures were always on the first night set. They do have a interesting flea as well as all the other squirrel fleas. There is a fur mite on them that is only 0.5 mm is size and there has been several attempts to smash and bash the DNA to figure species ID - but no luck yet on this.

One of the interesting ways of capturing them with a butterfly net is; go to their hollow tree or nest box and roust them......watch where they fly......then the next day do it again....but have someone in the ready at the landing tree...and swoop.

Thump-thump- piter-patter across the roof they go

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Cool photos, Gulo. Also great drawings and pics, Miss Sharon.
Bajansma, you must have calloused hands because the only time I bare handed one of those fur-balls it bit the daylights out of me and broke the skin very much! I have a non-stop war with Flying Squirrels here. my old farmhouse is impossible to make rodent proof without a full coat of armor, so every year I have the darn things get in my attic and raise heck. Them being communal/social animals usually means I have to remove numerous. I had the little snots chew a hole into my taxidermy shop some years back......they'd sniffed out a plastic barrel I kept my shelled corn in (for feeding my "Yard Cranes" and such). I deployed a 5 gallon pail about 1/3 full of water, toss a double handful of sunflower seeds in it. I believe it was 10 waterlogged carcasses I removed the next A.M. I hate doing them in on account of they're so cute and all big-eyed and all.
Bushmaster, neat pics as well. I once did a carpentry job at a couple's home in an oak woods and there were numerous tails laying around under the people's bird feeder. They were proud cat people.

P.S. to my above post........I have caught several FS while trapping weasels with snap-traps. Also, when I'd trap them with those type traps in my attic, many times their brethren and sistren would devour the heads off the trapped victims. They love meat, even of their relatives!

At last some pics of Northern Flying Squirrel

This is a 25 Sept pic and you can see the summer pelage is just molting out to the winter in the middle pic

We have a species of flying squirrel in south central PA Many years ago as I was getting set up to hunt gray squirrels I saw one on a large popular tree .I thought it was a flying squirrel but it was still dark in the woods .But then I saw it launch itself to another tree.I was hunting with a friend that worked for the local phone company .He was a lineman .So he climbed poles and he also did repairs on the boxes that are set up on the ground . Anyway I mentioned seeing this flying squirrel and he said there are no flying squirrels in our part of PA .He was adamant that I WRONG .After that if we where arguing about whatever he would bring up my flying squirrel story to me . Well one day he said he had been working on one of the phone company ground boxes and it turned out that a flying squirrels had made a nest in it and that was the problem .When he finished his story I said well that can't be since we do not have them in our area .You have several great pictures and some interesting information about them in your post . You proved me right again that trappers are the most observant people in the woods and world . They spend so much time in the outdoors that they see and noticed details that most people do not notice Very good post

N50 yours are such a pretty yellow tone in summer ! Mine are always gray.

Jack, every artist wouldn't have a paw to stand on if not for good reference photos. Thanks to folks like yourself.

It's humorous to watch them land on a tree trunk after a big glide. They smack the trunk and bounce a little

Every squirrel-marten chase that I have seen there is a always a floating squirrel tail coming via gliding down from above.

No question, they often do have ectoparasites!

Jack

Should be a disclaimer for Sharon not to look
You can actually see several of those fur mites as white spots
That one specimen would have been 100$+ of tax receipts for me to collect Jack but a few hours of prep work

UGH.....I done looked, too late, N50....they all need to wear flea collars.

Come on Sharon. I want to see a 30 x 40" artwork rendition of a flea from a flying squirrel. Pretty-please!?

Jack