Oregon Hikers

We were on the Oregon Coast Trail north of Cape Falcon when I spotted what I thought was a bird pass from left to right through the trees ahead. It appeared to land on the trunk of a tree near a black opening. I couldn't see anything at first then spotted some movement so I zoomed in (thus the blurry photo) and took a picture. When I got home I was surprised to see it was a squirrel and not a bird. The picture quality is poor enough that I can't tell what kind of squirrel it is and flying squirrels are nocturnal so it's hard for me to believe that's what it is but then again something landed in that spot. My other theory is the squirrel came out of the opening due to whatever it was I saw land on the tree.

Anyone else have thoughts?

I wouldn't rule out flying squirrel. Just because they are usually nocturnal doesn't mean that you wont occasionally see one in the daytime. Another thought, I've seen ground squirrels make incredible leaps from tree to tree but this doesn't look like the right color for a ground squirrel, hard to tell.

Limey wrote:I wouldn't rule out flying squirrel. Just because they are usually nocturnal doesn't mean that you wont occasionally see one in the daytime. Another thought, I've seen ground squirrels make incredible leaps from tree to tree but this doesn't look like the right color for a ground squirrel, hard to tell.

I thought about that too. the distance angle and speed didn't seem like a jump it was more a glide. I had initially thought it was a woodpecker flying from one tree to another. Certainly possible though.

I've seen Northern Flying Squirrels right in my back yard. It seems they are usually nocturnal as I've only seen them at dusk or at night in the light of my deck spot lights. The ones I've seen are much smaller than the common squirrels and very fast. They will swoop onto a shelf I've put up with bird seed on it and swoop away into the night
in about 2 seconds.

dn

Are you sure it was not a wind-aided leap? The wind does blow pretty hard out there on the coastal headlands.

I thought flying squirrels had blue aviator helmets.

Don Nelsen wrote:I've seen Northern Flying Squirrels right in my back yard... They will swoop onto a shelf I've put up with bird seed on it and swoop away into the night
in about 2 seconds.
dn

Wow! Never heard of that.
The only one I have ever seen was during the day, but the circumstances were odd...
We came home from a week away and when I went to scoop out some cat food from a large sack in the kitchen, a flying squirrel jumped out. At the time we were in the process of demolishing part of that house so there were plenty of places he could have come in. Even more odd, it had only one eye. I opened the door and herded it out and have never seen one since.

Now this...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017 ... h-america/

pcg wrote:Now this...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017 ... h-america/

Thanks for finding and posting this! A mystery now exists - I had assumed that what I had seen in my backyard were northern flying squirrels but it may be this new one. I have a video but it was taken with older technology so I doubt if even an expert could tell the difference. (The reason I have video is that I was curious what it was that I was seeing - a weird bird that could fly and see in the dark or something else. These things are so fast I couldn't make out any details. I set up a video camera and found out.)

dn