July 9, 2005
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MAINE WOODS CRITTERS
We have had an interesting visitor for the past couple of nights. About 11PM we heard a faint noise at the bird feeder, which is right outside a window. I peeked out and there was a flying squirrel helping himself. I got the flashlight so I could see him better and he wasn't alarmed at all by the light, just turned his back and kept on raiding the feeder.
Flying squirrels are not particularly rare but they are completely nocturnal and secretive so this was the first one we'd ever seen even though we'd heard them sometimes. The squirrel is about as big as my hand, has a funny flat tail and when spread out looks like a little rug. He doesn't eat much (he's about 1/4 the size of a regular grey squirrel) so he's welcome any night.
Comments (2)
They are interesting little creatures, aren't they? My father once had one for a pet. It had fallen out of a tree as a baby, so he kept it and named it Airborne.
Flying squirrels have a surprising amount of personality. Airborne would stand up and howl when a fire engine went by, and would stand on her hind legs and chatter when she got mad. She woke my father up at seven o'clock every morning demanding a dish of coffee and a dish of oatmeal. The coffee had to have sugar and cream, and the oatmeal had to have sugar and butter. She'd stand in the middle of each of the dishes and eat their contents, smacking so loudly that you could hear her in the other room.
great points altogether, you simply gained a brand new reader