Here is a bit of a curiosity, seen out of the kitchen window in Cambridgeshire this morning – a black grey squirrel. There was at least one and I think that I saw two, together with a grey grey squirrel. It isn't a red squirrel, unfortunately, because the colour is wrong and too dark, and there are no eartufts. I have seen black squirrels near Toronto in Canada but haven’t heard of them or seen any in the UK. My guess is that this one is just a genetic oddity, a melanic form of the usual grey squirrel. But is it just a freak that turns up now and again, or yet something else that lands at the door of global warming? And if it’s just a freak, why aren’t they more common? It would seem to be a neutral genetic mutation or sport, neither an advantage or disadvantage to the individual. Does anyone out there know anything about black grey squirrels please?
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