Red Giant Flying Squirrel

(L'écureuil volant géant rouge as they might say it in French with an overload of adjectives)

A number of these amazing animals were recorded at the canopy walk at the Rainforest Discovery Centre in Sepilok, Sabah, Malaysia. They are crowd pleasers and we were happy to see 3 of them every evening we were there. As the light in the forest faded away and the glow of the sunset highlights the jungles' silhouette, the grinding sound of the evening cicadas seem to set the stage for the gliding performers' entrance - almost like a drum roll, except there is no crashing cymbal when the red wings land on the tree trunk because the touchdowns are so gentle.

Due to my excitement and mostly my amateurish camera skills, it was difficult to capture the flight properly. As you will see in the video below, I could only manage this one proper launch from the tree trunk, followed the squirrel's flight path and hoping to capture the landing but alas, a foreground tree trunk was right in front of the landing spot. I was fortunate that there was immediately another flight to the same tree trunk by another willing acrobat and I was able to patch up the missing landing.

Initially we were concerned that our torches would be too bright and would disturb the flying herbivores but they didn't seem bothered. I even thought they enjoyed the limelight because the more we shone, the longer they stayed at one spot and picked the leaves illuminated by our light.

Update: More shots of this amazing glider

Keeping the fur in tip top condition...