Flying Squirrels: Seldom Seen But Common

Many people are very surprised to find out that flying squirrels are quite common in East Brunswick. They are seldom seen because they are highly nocturnal and unless disturbed from their day time hiding spot rarely venture out except after dark. Unlike bats and birds, flying squirrels don't really fly. Instead, they glide by using extra skin that can be stretched open between the body and the legs essentially forming a parachute to catch the air as they jump from tree to tree. This area of extendable skin is called a patagium.

Flying squirrels use tree cavities, or bird houses, abandoned bird and squirrel nests or even attics and crawl spaces in homes as their roost and nest sites where they spend the day, hibernate in the winter and raise their young. For anyone that grew up in the late 50's or 60's this is the little squirrel named "Rocky" or Rocket J. Squirrel of Rocky and Bullwinkle fame.

Flying squirrels are even common in the more developed areas of the town, provided there are abundant mature oak trees because acorns are a favorite food, although they apparently eat anything from seeds and nuts to insects, young birds, eggs and even carrion. I live near the high school in an area of homes built in the 1960's and 70's. The developer built the homes under the trees and only cleared enough area for each house, leaving lots of large oak trees throughout the neighborhood. Despite being a stone's throw from Route 18, and basically a large wooded island completely surrounded by development and isolated from any other woods, flying squirrels seem to be common in my neighborhood. They are most often seen at our bird feeders at night, especially the ones with sunflower seeds. From time to time, we get lucky and flip on the back deck lights to find one or two flying squirrels on the feeders. They are amazingly fast and can scurry up the tree and out of sight literally in the blink of an eye. When they run up the tree, they typically head to the back side away from our view or in a deep shadow where they are hard to see. But occassionally they will simply stay on the feeder or on the tree and allow a nice long look. In order to move quickly between the trees, they climb high into a tree and then leap into the air and glide to the next one. Once in a while we are lucky to see this and it is amazing how quickly they can use this behavior to move across the yard.

Flying squirrels are much smaller than our common gray squirrels. Probably everyone around town is familiar with the gray squirrels since they are out during the day. Flying squirrels are quite small and are only about a third of the size of the gray squirrels. They have huge eyes for seeing at night, a bushy tail and beautiful gray and brown toned soft fur. A perfect description might be that they look like the Beanie Babies that were all the rage about 10 or 15 years ago and are just about the same size. In New Jersey we have two species of flying squirrels, the Northern and the Southern. The Southern flying squirrel is the one we have in East Brunswick, while the Northern flying squirrel is found only in the far northern portions of the state.

Sometimes flying squirrels can be roused from their day-time hiding spots by gently tapping a tree with cavities and holes in it. On more than one occassion over the years I have found them this way in Jamesburg Park and in Frost Woods. The best trees to tap seem to be dead, at least a foot or more in diameter and maybe 15 or 20 feet tall and riddled with cavities and holes. If flying squirrels are there, the tapping will sometimes make them poke their heads out of a hole. At our recent Moth Night at Dallenbach's Natural Area we were lucky to see two flying squirrels feeding on the banana chunks in the sweet fermented mixture we paint on the trees to attract moths. I have included a few photos of a very wet flying squirrel that was on my feeder a few years ago just after a rain shower. And of course, if you have any photos of flying squirrels, share them with us at www.friendsebec.com.