White

One of the small pleasures of living here on Berry Road is that there are white squirrels. Most of them are in the area where Berry intersects with Birchwood Road, but as readers of the blog know, we have seen white squirrels in our own back yard.

I have sometimes referred to them as albino squirrels, but I think I was wrong. Here is an image of a true albino squirrel. Note the pink eyes.

Below is a photograph that Michelangelo took last year of a white squirrel under our bird feeder.

It looks to me like his/her eyes are dark. If that is the case, what we have is not an example of albinism but of leucism:

• Leucism (from the Greek, leukos, white) is a genetic peculiarity due to a gene, recessive in most cases, which gives a white color to the fur or feathers of animals which normally would have a different color.
• Albinism (from the Latin albus, white) is a congenital anomaly consisting of a total or partial deficiency of melanin pigmentation in the skin, iris and choroid, and also in the fur or plumage. It is caused by an absence or defect of tyrosinase, the enzyme which is involved in the synthesis of melanin — the pigment that gives skin, hair, and eyes their color. True albinos have pink eyes.

Of course, Michelangelo's photo through the dining room window may not be clear enough to be sure, and I have never been able to get very close to one. But my impression is that they have dark eyes.

I mention this now because, due to extensive road and utility work at the Berry-Birchwood intersection this past spring and summer, we had not seen any white squirrels for quite a while. I wondered, in fact, if the disruption to their usual habitat had made them re-locate. Yesterday, however, on my way back from Starbucks, I saw one in the woods just after I turned onto Berry Road. 

It takes very little to make me happy sometimes.