One of Britain’s most-loved writers, Simon Barnes, has revealed the inspiration behind his new book on flight – and it involves flying squirrels crashing into trees.
Simon has been obsessed by flight for as long as he can remember, and in his book How to Fly: Taking Wing With Birds, Bats, Insects and Humans (Bloomsbury) he explores the wonders of flight and the way different species have evolved distinct solutions to the problem of defying gravity.
“I was in a clearing in the jungles in Borneo. And at dusk the flying squirrels come out, and you can watch them galloping up the sides of a tree, and then they turn round and they look as if they’re trying to dare themselves to do something. Then off they go,” he explains in the latest episode of the BBC Wildlife podcast Wild Lives.
“They’re very unstable laterally. I assume they’re under control but they look comic, as if they’re kind of wobbling, and then they crash into the side of the next trunk, then gallop up and do it all over again. It’s an intoxicating sight, and I think it was there watching them that planted the seeds for the book.”
Elsewhere in the episode Simon discusses the nature of ‘true flight’, how even ‘terrible flyers’ such as pheasants have a huge advantage, which species flew first, the joys of birdwatching, and how human cultural history is littered with the dream of flight.
You can hear the full conversation with Simon in the latest episode of Wild Lives – listen below or search for Wild Lives wherever you get your podcasts.
Top image: Northern flying squirrel in flight, Quebec, Canada. Credit: Fabrice Simon/Biosphoto/Alamy
