Night Visitor - What the heck WAS that????!!!!

Last night, we heard Casey barking towards the back of the house. After chastising her, I asked Dave to take a peek out the back and see if our raccoon had returned. He peered into the dark and said, "Nope, but there's a cute little mouse out in our feeder". And we both said "Awwwwww". Dave kept watching, and I came over to join him. But we both realized it was NOT moving like a mouse. I flicked on the outside light really quick, so we could get a better look, and we both recoiled in fear! What the heck IS that???!!!! It was a normal looking squirrel, but the eyes were all wrong: huge, dark and black - so creepy!! We had never seen anything like it before - a squirrel AT NIGHT??? It was so strange to see something that looked almost familiar, but was still very alien. We watched it for quite a while, flicking on the light occasionally to get a better look - I saw it start to run around at super-fast speed around our two feeders.

So, we were totally freaked out - we had never seen anything like it before! I spent some time this morning online, and found out that it was a flying squirrel!!! Can you believe it? I didn't realize they were nocturnal - that explains the huge dark eyes. And the running around in the dark. :) And it turns out that they are incredibly fast-moving as well! So, mystery solved. We feel better now. :)

I found this fantastic site, that has great pics, and a map that showed we indeed have flying squirrels in this area (which we never knew!). Check it out for all the information you could ever desire on Flying Squirrels, a totally complete site: http://www.flyingsquirrels.com/.

I can't believe I've lived in Nova Scotia my whole life and never knew we had such creatures here. :) We'll be watching for him again!