Flying squirels and Surefire M6/M6R

Last night I was checking outside temp to decide if I wanted to light a fire in my wood buring fireplace insert.

it was 60 degrees and pretty nice outside, heard high pitch sqeals, kinda like baby birds.

my 12 year old boy had set a trap for rabbits in the front yard and thread was tangled everywhere. My boy came out checking out what was going on... He said it sure sounds like baby chicks.

so I ran inside and grabbed surefire M6 with M6R. I lit up the front yard with M6 and shined all into our 75+ ft tall oaks. lo and behold we saw two little critters with bushy tails scampering all thu the oak tree. they were hiding from the light scampering high into tops of oak tree.

Then one of the critters FLEW to the other oak tree! evidently the second critter had already flown there. it glided from tip top of first oak to second one.

we lit up the second tree trying to get a solid look at our mysterious critters. by that time my 17 year old son came out to see what was going on.

then M6/M6R did it's low battery warning of inpending shutdown. Surefire M6 had been burning continously for aprox. 18 minutes. Ran inside and grabbed my MRX and Barbolight U-09 and we were back in business

the tree tops were lit up but good, my 17 year old son thought he saw something fly to another tree. we never saw another glimpse of the myterious critters.....

Sugar Gliders maybe? :thinking:

no pics?

I have never seen one in person, geographically challenged I guess.. Very cool looking animal..

sorry no pic's of squirels, they were really hard to see.

Surefire M6 sure lit up the night!

I spotted this Flying squirel on the Malaysian island of Langkawi. Sorry for the bad pic, but it was very difficult to take. It was sitting about 20 feet away up in a tree. I knew my flash wouldn't reach, so I had to point my Aleph 3 (1000 mA :naughty: ) at the critter, while trying to hold my camera absolutely still. Lens zoomed to max, and quite low light condition (despite the powerfull Aleph 3 beam) and no tripod - you can imagine the difficulty.

After taking about 25 pictures of which this turned out best, the Squirel took of and flew to another tree - WAY COOL


Jan

Coooool picture!!!

even if I had thought to get a camera, they were moving so fast 50-75 ft up in the tree. no way to get more than a glimpse.

Surefire M6/M6R sure got a workout. it was so cool to use M6 it like a normal light. We were moving all over, lighting up tree from differant angles trying to see the little critters. they were hiding from the light. soon as we moved the light to another angle. they scampered to back side of tree.

the one solid glide we saw was the highlight of the night!
I grew up in Tulsa and I've never seen or heard of any flying squirels.

Hi Cy -

Good workout for the lights! I live in Tulsa too, and my tree guy says he will occasionally run across a flying squirrel nest when taking down a tree. He claims they make great pets, though they are normally nocturnal.

I've never seen one, myself..

I had a close up of a flying squirrel once in the Midwest while sitting in the fork of a tree. I was deer hunting and it was just about dusk when it climbed on the bough right in front of me; it was only two feet away.

I grew up in Hawaii and the mongoose is common around there as is the ground squirrels is to California. They sure can make quite a noise when they do in addition to the screechers flying overhead at night. Doesn't bother me none.

I have not seen these "sugar gliders," flying squirrels in the wild, but did chance upon them when I was in Vancouver Washington. They were selling them as pets in a shopping mall. Interesting little critters I must say!

I actually had two sugar gliders until about a month ago (both died, one from not chewing her food all the way, and the other due to depression (they are "Pack" animals))

The reason they were running is the light is extremly bad for them. We were told that we had to put black-outs up on the windows in the room we kept them.

Wish we still had those two, I miss em. Very social, very friendly, and very fun!

cy said:

I grew up in Tulsa and I've never seen or heard of any flying squirels.

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wasBlinded said:

I live in Tulsa too, and my tree guy says he will occasionally run across a flying squirrel nest when taking down a tree.

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We live just south of Muskogee and my wife and I were visiting my mother-in-law just the other day down by Lake Eufaula and one of her cats caught what we first thought was a little baby squirrel. It turned out to be a grown flying squirrel. I felt bad for the poor thing but it was kinda neat to see one up close.

Anyways, just wanted to say hi to some fellow Oklahomans.

I've only seen them in photos but I've heard of people keeping them as pets. I guess it's a common practice to carry a baby sugar glider sround in a shirt pocket. That way the critter bonds to it's owner from the warmth, scent and sound of the owner's heartbeat.

Interesting subject!

I've recently discovered them in SuperiorNational Forest in northeastern Minnesota. We've been going there for over 20 years and never knew they existed before.

The ground squirrels and chipmunks are so used to campers that they'll scamper right up and chew through just about anything to get into your food, so we've learned to buy sunflower seeds and place little piles around the perimeter of our camp to keep the little buggers busy.

One night while sitting around the fire - we heard the sound of a critter munching seeds at the base of a tree just 10 feet behind my wife's chair. I used my VIP/BH on low setting to see what it was, and a squirrel scampered four feet up the tree trunk and stopped to look at us.

While we were standing there looking at it and thinking "gee, that's weird - squirrels don't usually come out at night", another one flew right past my head from behind (scared the crap outta me momentarily) and landed next to the other squirrel on the same tree trunk. As they scrapped with each other for a moment, I could see the webbing and realized what they were.

From that point we left them alone and continued to observe only by the soft light of the campfire. As we began looking up into the trees, we could see them flying back and forth through the canopy as the firelight lit up their underbellies while in flight. There were many - perhaps a dozen or more. Almost looked like a swarm of bugs flying back and forth. They were all taking turns at the sunflower seed piles.

We continued to watch for some time. These critters are absolutely amazing. They can glide tremendous distances and remain completely silent, except for the occasional rustling of a tree branch upon a bad landing. We figure this is a survival instinct, as there are also many owls indigenous to the area.

A few days later we went on a two-night backpacking excursion. There was a beautiful full moon backlighting some clouds, and we walked fifty yards up the trail to get a clearer view through the trees for a photo. One of these squirrels followed us out and back, bouncing from tree to tree. It seemed as though it was just as curious about us as we were of it.

That was a great trip - can't wait for the next one…

Thanks for sharing - John

[EDIT-Added scan of photo]

I have 8 Sugar Gliders. They are NOT an easy pet to take care of. There is a lot of work to keep them happy and healthy. This is not an easy decision to get one, they can live 12-15 years! They are small, but unlike hampsters and gerbils they live a tad longer. The gliders have to have pretty warm conditions all the time: 70-90 deg. F. They come from very warm climates, Australia and New Guinea. It would be hard to say but I don't think you would be able to see them that far up, very small; plus their tail if long and narrow, also pointing at the flying squirrel.

As far as not chewing their food all the way, that is how they eat. They suck the juices out of tree branches the wild. At home, they leave lots of little dried up bits of food left over. They also need lots of attention, even more so if they are solo. My wife and I have 2 gliders that have separate cages and are doing perfectly fine. The other two cages are 3 rescues, and a family of three.

I can think of a million reasons not to buy anything in a pet store in the mall. Bad breeding conditions, horrible diet, not enough cage space, very poor sanitary conditions etc. Sugar gliders are great pets though, we have only purchased from a reputable, knowledgeable breeder. We have rescued quite a few gliders from abuse and neglect.

Anyone that is interested in this thread go to:

http://worldwidesugarglidernetwork.com/

A wealth of information for those who are curious about these critters.

wasBlinded said:

Hi Cy -

Good workout for the lights! I live in Tulsa too, and my tree guy says he will occasionally run across a flying squirrel nest when taking down a tree. He claims they make great pets, though they are normally nocturnal.

I've never seen one, myself..

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good to see other folks in Tulsa..

small wonder why I've never seen flying squirels before, as they are nocturnal. it's only recently I've been a flasholic

heathah said:

We live just south of Muskogee and my wife and I were visiting my mother-in-law just the other day down by Lake Eufaula and one of her cats caught what we first thought was a little baby squirrel. It turned out to be a grown flying squirrel. I felt bad for the poor thing but it was kinda neat to see one up close.

Anyways, just wanted to say hi to some fellow Oklahomans.

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good to hear from another Okie

These are also known as flying foxes... or fruit bats... good eating... hehe...

JanCPF said:

I spotted this Flying squirel on the Malaysian island of Langkawi. Sorry for the bad pic, but it was very difficult to take. It was sitting about 20 feet away up in a tree. I knew my flash wouldn't reach, so I had to point my Aleph 3 (1000 mA :naughty: ) at the critter, while trying to hold my camera absolutely still. Lens zoomed to max, and quite low light condition (despite the powerfull Aleph 3 beam) and no tripod - you can imagine the difficulty.

After taking about 25 pictures of which this turned out best, the Squirel took of and flew to another tree - WAY COOL

Jan

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