[milton-chat] Black squirrels

[Paul Oldham]

On 27/12/07 22:31, Clarke Brunt wrote:

> 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.

I suspect being black has some disadvantages: it's not such a good 
camouflage colour which makes them more of a target to predators, and it 
may be hotter in the Summer. So those two factors may act against it.

They've certainly been around the area for a while, I remember seeing 
one in the tree opposite the Waggon and Horses (the one currently 
sporting Xmas lights) a couple of years ago and others were reporting 
sighting in that period too.

Having said that the squirrel I regularly see in All Saints' churchyard 
(the one that lives in the big yew tree at the entrance) is grey despite 
reports of blacks there.

-- 
Paul