rocky? is that you?

As it turns out, my brother gave me very good advice when he told me I'd never want to put a cat door coming directly into the house. Into the attached garage is fine, but not the house. Steve the cat has quite a penchant for catching small creatures and bringing them into the garage to play with. Alive. He'll play with them until they die. Sometimes he'll eat them and sometimes he'll leave them for me to find and clean up (nice). Most of the time it's voles, sometimes baby rabbits, and once a catbird. The voles and rabbits don't bother me much. The catbird had me pretty irritated since it was one of a pair that was nesting in the tree right outside my bedroom window, and I LIKE catbirds. But this morning really took the cake. There he was, in the garage playing with a baby flying squirrel. Quickly intervening, I deposited Steve in the house and donning a pair of thick leather gloves, caught the little guy and put him in a box for the short trip back into the woods. I wanted to take a picture of him, but didn't want to prolong the torture of confinement longer than absolutely necessary (the photo above is one that I found). Taking him to the base of a very large tree, tipping the box on it's side and opening it up, I released him. He quickly scampered up the tree to safety. Hopefully he's old enough to be on his own or his mother finds him. 

For those of you who have never seen a flying squirrel, they are very small nocturnal creatures that can glide from tree to tree using the webbing between their legs for lift. It's been many years since I've seen one and I'm glad to know they're around.