[milton-chat] Black squirrels

[Clarke Brunt]

Just thought I'd mention that I'm seeing at least one 'black' squirrel
frequently visiting my garden in High Street.

I'm sure you're all avid readers of the weekly free 'Cambridge Crier', so
you'll no doubt have noticed that on 23rd Nov 2007, they featured a photo of
a 'rare' black squirrel which a teenager had seen in the city. The next
week, 30th Nov 2007, they published my 'letter' (actually email) saying that
they weren't all that uncommon. There was also a letter from someone in Fen
Road, Milton, saying that the squirrels were regulars at All Saints' church,
so we do seem to have a bit of a hot spot for them round here.

I'd already read about black squirrels in the Girton area, so I knew that we
already had them in the area, as a quick web search soon confirms. They're
reckoned just to be dark variants on the normal 'grey' theme, though I
wonder if it's a dominant gene, and they're going to end up nearly all
black.

This morning, the black squirrel finally came near enough for a decent photo
(taking food meant for birds as usual), so I've done a web page with both
the normal grey, and the black.

http://www.viridis.net/animals/ is probably a good place to start, as you
might also like the Great Tits in my nestbox earlier in the year.

-- 
Clarke Brunt http://www.viridis.net/ Photos of cacti etc. in habitat