What an incredible surprise!!! At the end of summer, which was only a few weeks back here at The Ranch, I was cleaning out all the nesting boxes from the spring nesting. I came to the box we call The Condo and opened the side to be surprised by a Northern Flying Squirrel curled up inside dead a sleep. It opened one eye, looked at me as I slowly closed the box back up. We have flying squirrels at The Ranch … Sharon & I were so excited to find that out as they are not supposed to be here! We had them in the Sierra and I got to photograph them for a while until things got complicated. This was a whole new opportunity but I need a whole lot more info to make things happen. Homework time … I love homework time!
With the knowledge there is one flying squirrel here, the questions start to flood my mind. The first being, why are they here? The next, how many are here? This leads to a whole bunch more questions leading the most important, how to photograph them? In trying to determine how many are here, I went and purchased the Bushnell Night Vision Equinox Z2 Monocular and started to watch the trees at night especially around the feeder I built we call Mega (it holds 60lbs of seed, you can see it below). We have a lot of trees and while I think I saw them twice, I wouldn’t have noted it in the wildlife diary as it’s not for certain flying squirrels. Then I purchased the Bushnell 16MP Trophy Cam HD Essential E3 Trail Camera and on its first night on the job, it captured a Northern Flying Squirrel leaving Mega! Success! And now the questions flood in with the goal of photographing them.
First, I’ve gotta reposition the Trail Cam now that I’ve established the presence of the flying squirrels. I need to know how many come, when they come, from what direction do they enter and leave, what age classes, and that’s just for starters. The end goal of course is photographing them a WHOLE lot! We love finding new critters here at The Ranch and now with one question answered, just one thousand more to go.
