iN VIDEO: South Okanagan camper has close encounter with flying squirrel family

Oliver resident Donna-Lee Arnold was camping at nearby Sawmill Lake earlier this month when she had an interaction with a baby flying squirrel and its mother, a species the nature lover had never seen before. 

Her puppy had something in its mouth and when she told the dog to drop it, she saw it was a baby flying squirrel.

“I was blown away when I saw it, I had no idea we had them here,” Arnold said. “It had a thicker, furry tail, and then I noticed the folds in between his legs. I wanted to look more closely but didn’t want to handle it too much.”

She put the baby on a tree where it attempted to bury itself into the folds of bark, while she left the area in hopes the mother squirrel would come get it. She got busy doing things at her site for awhile, and then saw a movement in the surrounding trees.

“The adult squirrel came out of a tree and glided onto the tree the baby was on,” Arnold said. “I saw the baby had slipped to the bottom of the trunk. The adult went down and climbed back up with the baby in its mouth, then glided over with it to a nearby tree.

“I was so thrilled that even happened, that I got to see it and the baby lived.”

The northern flying squirrel is the only native species of flying squirrel in the country and while they are quite common it’s rare to see them as they are nocturnal, according to National Wildlife Federation.

Roughly 10 to 12 inches long, the squirrels have a membrane between their front and back legs that allows them to glide in between trees by jumping into the air with limbs spread wide. Leg movements steer them and their tails act as breaks.

Flying squirrels can cover more than 150 feet in a single glide.