Black Squirrel

This squirrel was in my son's front yard. There are some all black squirrels in Mahomet IL, the white squirrels of Olney IL, and I am now seeing gray squirrels around here that seem to have been breeding with the fox squirrels as the show varying degrees of red in there grey coat.

Cool! We have a population of white squirrels. They aren't albino. You can see the bit of gray stripe.

Quite a few black squirrels around here, and I swear the red ones are cross-breeding with the chipmunks.
I've seen some pretty weird looking squirmunks/chipsquires around.
Might be able to get some pics, but the little bastages are pretty quick.
I've yet to see a white one, Kathleen.

That's cool. The white ones in Olney IL are albinos I think. Those you have are very unique.

I would love to see some pics if you can get some. I was looking up squirrels on the internet today and apparently there are a lot of color variations. But I am sure the grays and fox, red squirrels are interbreeding here.

We have black and grey around me. Never saw a white one.

The city near where I live, and the entire town where I live, were left undamaged from hurricane Sandy's wind. No lost power. Then two days later about 5000 homes lost power because a squirrel got fried and fried a transformer.

I'm originally from Grand Island, NY, where we had Grey and Red squirrels. I move to Ohio in "77" and met the big Fox squirrels, red with big bushy tails. Years ago, I think in the 70's, some Biology professor at Kent State released several Black squirrels onto the campus. They are very aggressive, and have been slowly expanding their territory out past Kent. I'm about 20 miles from there and saw my first one out here last week. Hunted and ate a lot of them critters when I was young back in NY. Tasty, but a bear to clean!

I'm surprised you have only seen your first black squirrel there recently. I'm from Hartville and we have had them for as long as I can remember. Clinton is not that much further from Kent than Hartville.

Never seen a black or a white squirrel but plenty of the gray ones here and an occasional red squirrel..

Clinton - ? - I live southeast of Kent in Diamond, over by Lake Milton. You're right though, I'm maybe twice as far as you from Kent, but still not very "far". 20 miles top. I too would have thought to see them sooner, maybe all the big fat fox squirrels that I have around here have just kept them out till now.

I'm always amazed at the local folks you meet via the internet! A day ago we were talking PPE one place, then talking squirrels here, and you live just a "short" distance away! Glad to meet you Swagler85, name is Mike "Boog" Powell.

Nice to meet you as well, Sean Here
Sorry bout the Clinton place, dont know why I thought that and not Diamond when its right in your avatar.

My inlaws in Syracuse NY have blacks hanging around the house. Saw one Sunday

you would think they wouldnt be as apt to survive as anormally colored squirrels standing out like that in my mind would make them easy targets for raptors

I believe that's "piebald"

Black squirrels are a genetic variety of other breeds (gray squirrels here). Normally only see them in populated areas where they are less easily picked off by predators.

I'm surprised you never saw any here. There are a lot on goat island and around Niagara
Falls and Lewiston.

That's interesting, never saw any there back in the "old" days on Grand Island. Maybe the mighty Niagara River kept Grand Island isolated enough that they never got a toe hold there. Hunted and ate a lot of GI squirrels growing up there but never saw one black one. Lived in Kenmore too till I was 13 (then moved to GI) and never saw one there either. We had two chestnut trees on the property in Kenmore too, every squirrel for many blocks around would pack at our place but never a black one. I've been gathering chestnuts from a big tree on GI and planting them down here in Ohio for several years now. In addition to the acorns, hickory nuts, mockernuts, pignuts, and beech nuts, my future squirrels will have black walnuts and chestnuts too!

That's a beautiful thing,especially when a dozen are simmering all day in a bottle of Chardonnay,a quart of chicken broth and some garlic,tastiest wild game in my opinion,quite a few black squirrels in my area,just a melanonic gray.PS yours is safe.

I can skin a squirrel in 30 seconds clean as a whistle,no hair on the meat,if you need to know my trick shoot me a Pm,been hunting squirrels since age 6.