I garden for many reasons. I get a deep sense of connection to the natural world and enjoy the pleasure derived from being surrounded by beauty, nature, color, texture, and fragrance. Developing my gardens is creative and challenging, stimulates my senses and soothes my soul. It seems to fill a need that seemingly can't be filled by anything else.

During the warm weather, when I am working at my computer in the evening, I have a simple technique to bring in the sights, scents, sounds and breezes from outside in through the sliding screen doors. I like to dim the room lights low and turn on the outdoor floodlights that light up my garden.

Several weeks ago, with the floodlights on the garden outside, I saw the silhouette of a chipmunk scurrying up the screen door and stop near the top. This was highly unusual for two reasons. First, I never see chipmunks out after dark. Second, even during the day, I've never seen a chipmunk or any other animal climb up the screen door.

I expected the chipmunk to scamper on, but he just stayed there, motionless. With my interest piqued, I got up to turn up the light to see him better. I got to see him quite clearly, since it turned out he was not outside, but rather inside the room on the screen. At least that cleared up the mystery of why he was on the screen in the first place.

My concern about how to get a wild animal out of the house was only eclipsed by my sense of relief that my wife was not home at that moment. Trying to convince her to enjoy our house in the woods is always an uphill battle every time wildlife makes an indoor visit.

Back to my visitor. With the lights on, I could see that it wasn't a chipmunk after all. He was a baby squirrel. He was quite small, seemed to be soft and furry, and stared at me with unusually large black eyes. He looked kind of cute, although he would have looked cuter if he was not inside my home.

He scrambled up a little further and suddenly he looked different again. He had a furry membrane between the front and back legs on either side, the signature characteristic of a flying squirrel. Somehow, I had always believed that flying squirrels were from some far away exotic place, not here in Connecticut, the northeast or even North America, for that matter.

He was obviously scared and I needed to provide an opportunity for him to escape outside. With a pole, I carefully managed to nudge the latch down and very slowly slide the screen door open. I moved to the other side of the squirrel to encourage it to move towards the open way out. Suddenly, the squirrel leapt from the top of the screen door and sailed into the kitchen and disappeared into a nook. He had landed 15 feet away starting from barely seven feet up. Hmm, if it looks like a flying squirrel, flies like a flying squirrel, then ...

I closed the door to the rest of the house, but not knowing what else to do, I sat back down at my computer. After a minute or so, he appeared and headed for the open screen door. When he was about halfway, he stopped and looked at me with those large black eyes. We stared at each other for about 10 seconds, then he darted out the open door and was gone.

The next day I spoke to a friend who had spent the summer in Great Barrington in Massachusetts. He told me that his wife had fallen in love with a creature of the night -- A flying squirrel had gotten into his house this summer and his wife found the squirrel so adorable that she wanted to adopt it as a pet. After never hearing about a flying squirrel my entire life, I had two flying squirrel stories within 24 hours. I decided to do some research.

It turns out that there is a sizeable population of flying squirrels in Connecticut, as well as in the rest of New England. And they are quite different than the very familiar and ubiquitous Eastern Grey squirrels that have been part of our landscapes forever, whether in our back yards and in a city park.

We don't see flying squirrels because they are nocturnal while Eastern Grey squirrels are diurnal (active during the day). Flying squirrels are also much smaller. They are eight to 10 inches long and weigh only two to three ounces. Compare this to the grey ground squirrel that is twice as long and weighs almost 10 times as much, averaging 14 to 25 ounces. It was becoming clear that the little critter that made its way into my house is a very different animal than the familiar ground squirrel.

Flying squirrels have soft, gray-brown fur on the back and sides, with white underparts, a flattened tail and large, dark eyes for night vision. The loose folds of skin between the front and hind legs enable it to glide through the air on the stretched surface of this loose skin. Flying squirrels may glide 150 feet or more from a height of 60 feet. They are very agile while gliding and can turn easily at right angles. Flying squirrels are active year-round, are highly sociable, and will feed and den together, especially during periods of harsh weather.

They are considered very timid and gentle animals. Most surprisingly, they are kept as pets and there are flying squirrel breeders. Flying squirrels are said to form a very deep bond with their owners if acquired at a young age. During this bonding period, the squirrel will learn the voice, heartbeat, body odor, and warmth of its owner and will look for these qualities in later years as a sense of security They have a natural tendency to want to rustle around or even snuggle up and sleep in your pocket, making the Flying Squirrel a perfect "pocket pet."

I must admit, my little guy did look awfully cute.
