Jasper Georgia Now Has Flying Squirrels

Welcome again to the Faith Pest Control podcast. Hi, I’m Mike Stewart, your host and we’re here today with pest expert Fred Talley of Faith Pest Control, Faith Pest Control services all the fine folks in Jasper, Georgia, Blue Ridge, Georgia Ellijay, Georgia and pretty much anywhere in the North Georgia mountains. If you have a pest problem, Fred Talley is the man to take care of those problems. And now here’s Fred Talley.

So Mikey southern flying squirrels that actually pretty much in the eastern half of the United States, from southeastern Canada all the way down into southern Florida, and they’re pretty much nocturnal animals. It’s actually pretty rare for humans to have any kind of meaningful interaction with flying squirrels. Because they are almost exclusively nocturnal animals. They mostly live in the forest, which have either acorn and barren trees, as well as some source of water. Their habitat must also have some kind of some scattered dead trees and some dead trees that kind of remain standing. Flying squirrels will sometimes nest in attics of of human homes, if you will. That’s when pest control Wildlife Control professionals get involved. Flying squirrels generally are less active during the colder months However, here in North Georgia, we typically don’t have winters cold enough for them to be totally inactive. Nighttime in the fall is considered one of the best times to be able to see see the flying squirrels because they’re they’re busy at that time of year, gathering and storing food for the winter. As far as sound goes, you can identify a flying squirrel by they have a high pitched, cheap, if you will, that in often can be heard around the first two or three hours after sunset. The Flying squirrels use these cheeps or chirps and various other sounds in with the sounds, they are able to keep track of each other as well as to warn each other of some type of impending danger. Sometimes the sounds are so shrill that they are they exceed the upper limits of the frequencies that humans can hear. In warmer weather. Flying squirrels feed on multiple forms of vegetation, notably mushrooms, persimmons, wild grapes and the bark of many hardwood trees. They also feed on hickory nuts and acorns and the pits of wild cherries to include other seeds as well in that flying squirrels do not hibernate. However, they will nest together during during the winter and they will nest together in groups. They have the ability to reach reduce their metabolic rate, as well as their body temperature in order to conserve energy. And they also rely on each other’s body heat that radiated in their friend group if you will. Female flying squirrels are actually very attentive parents to their young. The mothers will will maintain several secondary nests, which are available to them to take their young in order to keep them safe from predators, even if the predator is larger than the female or the mother. And even if she is outnumbered, she will not hesitate to defend her young a flying squirrel mother has been observed moving her young during a forest fire in which during that process and moving them she was actually sin singed herself, I guess, goes to saying hell hath no fury. Flying Squirrel nests in the wild are typically made of shredded bark and and or Spanish moss. As you can imagine, these squirrels do not actually fly but they are excellent gliders. They have a membrane that grows between their legs and their body, which allows them to spread their body out almost like a parachute and they’re able to glide. They can quite easily climb out on tree limb that’s higher than the roof of a house and just glide right over to the roof and land slay safely. Flying squirrels the baby flying squirrels are typically weaned from their mother when they’re six to eight weeks old. When when they are initially born. The young are typically about two and a half inches long as that’s measured from the top of their