Tootie's Backyard

Bessie’s Home

Although Bessie primarily lives in Tootie and Yoshi’s neighbor’s yard, she has a second home in a cavity in the willow oak tree in Tootie’s backyard. When her first home becomes dangerous, she’ll stay at her second home for a few days.

Last year, during a winter storm, the limb holding her primary nest, which she built with dead leaves, fell from its tree, and she stayed at her second home for several weeks while she rebuilt her primary home on another limb of her original tree home.

Bessie was born in mid-summer in a nest similar to her own, along with her five siblings. In the spring of the same year, Bessie’s mom gave birth to four of Bessie’s other siblings.

Because Bessie and her family are mammals, they were born in a live birth, meaning they weren’t hatched from eggs.

When Bessie and her siblings were babies, they were called pups, like Tootie and Yoshi. Bessie’s older siblings left the nest when they were four months old. Bessie and her siblings, born in summer, left their nest after their first winter.

What types of animals do you see in your yard during winter?

Bessie’s Hobbies

Unlike her cousins, Scott and Guy, who are diurnal, or active during the day, Bessie is nocturnal, meaning that she is mostly out at night when Tootie and Yoshi are asleep. Her large eyes allow extra light in, helping her see to forage and hunt at night. She also uses whiskers on her ankles, cheeks, and chin to keep her footing on branches at night.

Shortly after sunset, Tootie and Yoshi often hear her making high-pitched cheeping sounds as she starts her day.

Bessie is a solitary animal and spends most of her time foraging alone. However, some winters she finds roommates to help her stay warm.

When Bessie hangs out with other flying squirrels, they form a group called a scurry or a dray.

When Bessie does come out during the day, Tootie and Yoshi usually see her running along the tree limbs of the willow oak tree or gliding from its limbs toward a tree in the neighbor’s yard. Although Bessie can’t actually fly, she can glide more than 150 feet if she runs hard enough before launching herself from a branch.

Grandma took Tootie and Yoshi skydiving once, and they wore suits that spread out similar to what Bessie’s body does naturally.

How do the animals in your yard get from place to place?

Bessie’s Diet

Bessie is an omnivore, meaning that she eats both meat and plants. She eats more meat than Scott or Guy, snacking on eggs, birds, bugs, and carrion, in addition to fruit, fungi, nuts, and seeds.

Bessie loves all kinds of food, and her favorite foods are acorns, bark, carrion, flower blooms, fungi like mushrooms, Junebugs, moths, baby birds, and young mice.

During the autumn season, Bessie will gather extra acorns and seeds and pile them up at the base of the tree she lives in.

Overall, Bessie is least active during the cold winter months, but Tootie and Yoshi sometimes see her collecting food from her autumn cache.

When she was still with her mom and siblings during her first winter, Bessie and her family would tell each other where to find the food they’d buried through a series of bird-like cheep sounds.

Because she sometimes drops seeds and fungi that she eats, Bessie helps more trees and fungi grow.

What other animals sleep more during the winter?