Gliding through the night

The night holds many mysteries, not the least of which are its creatures. Most people live a lifetime without ever seeing a common neighbor, the flying squirrel, yet they are all about us.

Both the Northern and Southern Flying Squirrels are mini versions of their daytime cousins – about half the size of a Gray Squirrel. Big-eyed because they are nocturnal, they make use of a flap of furry skin to glide – not fly – a hundred feet or more. They eat the usual squirrel foods, like nuts, seeds, insects and eggs, though the Northern is said to have a fondness for truffles and other tasty fungi.

Flying squirrels were once much better known and appreciated, not as aeronautical wizards but as companions. As far back as colonial times, people caught them as babies and raised them as pets. One of John Singleton Copley’s most famous paintings, “Boy with A Squirrel,” shows Copley’s half brother seated at a desk with a pet flying squirrel alongside him.

All is not perfect in this man-rodent relationship, however, and flying squirrels will sometimes infest attics. A dozen or more might decide to spend the winter huddled together in the comfort of your home.

A kick and a puff

Ages before video games or even Lego and Erector sets, children often entertained themselves with the toys of nature. In early autumn, a favorite was the Giant Puffball, a magical fungus that can reach massive proportions – in the world of fungi, at least. Specimens measuring six feet across and weighing more than 40 pounds have been found.

For a kid in the 18^th or 19^th Century, a big, white puffball sprouting in a pasture was just too tempting to ignore. Perhaps presaging their descendants’ interest in football and soccer, youngsters would invariably give the “ball” a good, swift kick. The reward was the namesake puff: A thick cloud of more than a trillion spores could burst from a ripe puffball.

The kicker probably did the fungus a favor, for the spores are its seeds and the kick cast the fate of future generations to the wind. Odds of success for a microscopic spore are slim, however, for its chances of creating a new Giant Puffball are literally one in billions.

Fairy rings

Fairy rings are magical places, nearly perfect circles of mushrooms that run from a few to many feet in diameter. Also called fairy circles or pixie rings, they were more often seen in the days when pastures were common and before chemicals and frequent mowing turned lawns into monotonous carpets of green.

A fairy ring marks the edge of an underground growth of fungus, called mycelium. This subterranean body spreads slowly outward, emitting chemicals ahead of it that convert organic matter to food usable by the fungus. When the time is right, the mycelium shoots up mushrooms at its outer edge. Like flowers on plants, they distribute spores that will create future fungi and, perhaps, fairy rings.

That’s the scientific explanation. Folklorists tell more colorful tales of fairies and elves, dancing in circles, wearing down the grass and sparking toadstools to sprout. If you weren’t careful and stepped inside a fairy ring, you might be transported into another world.

More fantastic than folklore is fact, however. There’s a fairy ring in France that’s a half-mile wide and said to be 700 years old!