Dateline: Fall 2006

Preamble

Our squirrels are educational tools. Sabrina and Scooter visit an extremely wide variety of venues, from campgrounds to convention centres to lecture halls, and because of this, we absolutely  require animals that are extremely well bonded to their handler. We have invested much time and energy in these endeavours, and we can safely say that Sabrina is well-bonded. Scooter, on the other hand, we are unsure of, simply because of his age and because he has not been "tested" all that much in his short life. We sure have proof of his "bondedness" now! (To all you young folk out there, "bondedness" is not a real word, hence the quotation marks)

Our Worst Nightmare

The taste of freedom was short, but spectacular!

It was a dark and stormy night.

Actually, no, it was a dark, clear and still night. October 8, 2006 at 10:30 p.m. to be exact. My wife and I were tent-camping at Pinery Provincial Park on the shores of southeastern Lake Huron, and we were sitting beside the camp fire. The moon had begun to rise above the horizon. Sabrina was in her travel cage beside us, as was Scooter in his travel cage. Both animals were busy in their Wodent Wheels, or just bopping around in their cages, soaking up the warmth of the fire on this cold Autumn night. The squirrels had been tent-camping all summer, during our tour of Ontario's campgrounds, so nothing was out of the ordinary for them. The night previous, we had a report of a Barred Owl haunting the area. We ourselves heard a noisy clan of flyers moving through the trees near our campsite, their not-so-quiet "tseeping" giving away their presence to the trained ear. And we were camping in "southern flying squirrel heaven" - this 6,330 acre protected park is host to the largest remaining (and globally rare) contiguous oak savanna in North America. This place, folks, is Rodent Heaven.

Now, Scooter is just a wee 65 gram juvenile, but he is already a terror in his Wodent Wheel. He was running so fast that the wheel and rubber-footed hardwood base had crept along the floor of the cage and began hitting the side, impeding his "style". I don't ever open doors of occupied cages outside at night in the forest, but I (wrongly!) figured that while he was doing his loop-da-loop thing in the wheel I could quickly reach in and reposition the wheel so that it was no longer hitting the side of the cage.

The Escape

It was quite dark, as the moon had not risen very high at the time, but I could hear and see the wheel turning at full speed. I quickly unlatched the cage door, and while making my fast adjustment to the position of the Wodent Wheel, Scooter jumped out, ran along my arm to the back of my camp chair, and then proceeded to jump onto the trunk of a nearby 30-foot-high red pine. We scrambled and attempted to grab the little bugger, but he would have no part of that! Up he went, higher and higher until we lost sight of him. No amount of coaxing would get his attention. He was young. He was a boy. He was a teenage boy. He was full of beans. He was now in his element.

The Journey

By this time, we were freaking out a tad. Scooter was nowhere to be seen. He was just 6 months old and came from a long line of captive-bred flyers. He had not glided more than 6 feet previously and had never known a forest environment "up close and personal", nor the inherent dangers contained within. We heard a thump to the left of us and Scooter had parachuted down to the ground beside a large red cedar, which he hurriedly scurried up and out of sight before we even had a chance to react. Doh! We lost sight of him again.

Into The Gloaming

We ascertained that he had climbed to the top of this red cedar, then walked along branches to a nearby red oak. From there, we had no idea where he was. We figured he was gone for good. By 10:40 he made another appearance, this time gliding over our heads to a overhanging red cedar about 20 feet away. Too high to grab, we tried to shake him off the tree, to no avail. We watched helplessly as he jumped over to a 30+ foot red cedar, which he subsequently ran up and out of sight. Ten minutes of calling and pleading produced no result - no sightings, no sounds. Now, for sure, he was long gone into the dark of night. We gave up calling for him and returned to our camp fire, in a state of shock over what had just transpired in a just the blink of an eye.

Sinking In

We were sitting and talking about what had just happened. "At least he is in southern flying squirrel-friendly forest". "He could not have picked a better place to escape" we concurred. Perhaps Scooter would take up with that group of flyers that came by last night, we pondered quietly. We decided we would stay an extra night, just in case he was still around tomorrow night (wishful thinking). My, how quickly it all happened - we kept running the scenario over and over in our heads, in order to help come to grips with the reality of the situation. What was done, was done.

Just Foolin' Around

Then, out of the dark, I glimpsed a shadowy movement out of the corner of my eye. It was Scooter! In one long glide, he had come back to the camp site, landing in a rather embarrassing fashion near the base of a small, spindly maple. I ran over to the location, Scooter ran up the thin trunk and quietly jumped on me, then ran into my shirt, where he proceeded to plonk himself down and  do some serious face-washing and general grooming.

He had simply taken advantage of his shot at freedom, decided it wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and made a conscious decision to come back "home" to safety. Roughly half an hour of frolicking while we fretted to no end.

Scooter was none the worse for wear after his little adventure - I can't say the same about my wife and I!


Scooter's forest foray in pictures