Country diary: your eyes do not deceive you - this is a black squirrel

Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire: There are about 25,000 of this melanistic form of the grey squirrel in the UK, and here they are local celebritiesAbove my head, two squirrels race through the sycamores. They are not the same colour. The pursuer is a flash of grizzled pewter, russet stains around its flanks and eyes; the other, a streak of inky darkness. Pewter - black - pewter - black. My eyes struggle to follow their acrobatics until they call a truce. For a moment they are visible, shelling acorns in the crook of a thick ivy stem. Then the black squirrel pauses and winks out of existence, its dark fur swallowed by the shadows. Continue reading...