UKH

I'm in France at the moment in a wooded area and there's a lot of red squirrels leaping about in the trees, which is lovely to see.

Anyway, I'm sat having breakfast when something fell and landed with a thud right in front of me. I thought a wood pigeon had just died! But this red squirrel just dusted itself off and ran straight back up the nearest tree!

I looked up and the nearest branches were pretty high up...Do red squirrels (or any squirrels) fall out of trees a lot? Occupational hazard maybe? The poor little critter didn't seem remotely hurt.

In reply to mountainbagger:

I watched a pair of grey squirrels having a squabble and one of them fell out of a massive beech tree. Totally unhurt. Or appeared to be. 

In reply to mountainbagger:

When I was little there was a big tree I used to climb. One time I realised I had inadvertently chased a squirrel up to the topmost branches. It hissed at me a bit then leapt off. I thought it would be dead, but then, to my relief, ran off uninjured.

In reply to mountainbagger:

Quite a long YouTube video, but also very entertaining squirrel obstacle course

youtube.com/watch?v=hFZFjoX2cGg&

(Around 11.50 and 16.10 for the science bits)

Explains how squirrels protect themselves in a fall, using their tail to steer and fanning out their body to slow the descent.

In reply to mountainbagger:

Someone told me about a grey that fell out of a tall tree a few days ago, glanced off someone's shoulder and splat onto the ground. Just ran off.

I suspect a lot of these are young ones that haven't quite got the experience yet.

On a similar theme, there's some interesting studies on survivability of cats falling off window ledges (I can't be bothered to look it up, years ago). IIRC several hundred feet up (skyscrapers) is eminently survivable, as long as the cat is correctly orientated, legs out and down, their terminal velocity is way less than ours. Presumably squirrels very similar.

In reply to mountainbagger:

We were climbing at La Pedriza (Madrid) about three pitches up and a red squirrel appeared out of a crack and leapt into the void, gliding very nicely about 50' to the nearest pine tree. We didn't try to emulate it!

Chris

In reply to mountainbagger:

Some species of squirrel glide enormous distances, don’t they? Ours are similarly adapted but not quite as good, I suppose.

I believe town cats break their legs falling out of windows quite a bit, but not usually fatally. It’d have to be a high window - ours jumped from a first floor window on to the patio and ran off quite happily.

jcm

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

They're allowed nine goes to get it right

In reply to mountainbagger:

Had a grey squirrel fall out of a tree in front of our parked car up at Castell Coch. It had been raining pretty hard and the poor thing was waterlogged. It splatted on the road (fortunately avoiding hitting the car), but shook itself off and scampered away.

In reply to Chris Craggs:

You are somewhat "cuddlier" than said squirrel though! 🤣🤣😘

In reply to Michael Hood:

"High Rise Syndrome". 

Various studies of varying quality, but suggesting injuries get worse with higher start point for the first 2 or 3 storeys, then injuries actually decrease between 3rd floor and 8-10th floor as the cat has enough time to sort itself out and land properly. Then above 10th floor usually fatal. 

I once had a cat brought in with 2 broken front legs because it jumped from upstairs bathroom window to catch a bat. Still proudly had the bat in its mouth!

In reply to Ron Rees Davies:

do you own a Chinese takeaway ? If so …..double bubble !

In reply to mountainbagger:

Squirrels have a non-terminal terminal velocity.

You can chuck them off skyscrapers and they'd be fine. 

In reply to Jenny C:

I watched quite a bit of that before my wife told me we'd seen that before! Great video

Thanks for all the replies everyone. In terms of cats, mine is definitely not nimble! Not much leaping around for her and when she does jump off anything there's a loud thud. She hurt herself some time ago, we think possibly hit by a car though we never knew for sure. She kind of gallops like Quasimodo rather than runs. How she catches any mice I don't know, but she does, annoyingly!

She's fascinated by squirrels too, but has absolutely no chance of catching one.

In reply to mountainbagger:  there is a V2 and V3 of the squirrel challenge, but I still think the first is the most entertaining.

In reply to Jenny C:

Which leads to the gliding capable “Flying Squirrel” which, given enough time, might evolve to proper powered flight like a bat.  What blows my mind is that cats are approaching a similar stage to red and grey squirrels when it comes to “safe falling”; just imagine if they evolved to the point of flying squirrels or even to powered flight some day.

Flight is such an amazingly convergent thing for evolution - birds, some insects and some mammals have achieved powered flight, whilst other insects, other mammals and trees (*) have evolved unpowered flight.

(*) sycamore seeds and the like autogyrate to fall really slowly, expanding the range the wind can carry them.  We live on a world with flying trees.

In reply to wintertree:

Don't forget the reptiles (lizards and snakes) and amphibians (frog) that can glide. I'm not sure if flying fish are powered or unpowered. They certainly get out of the water under their own power.

In reply to mountainbagger:

Exact same thing happened to me a few years ago in Thorp Arch. But it was a grey squirrel.