It’s funny how you can get used to something as unorthodox as a pure white squirrel.
I had heard of this beast in whispered conversation, but had never seen it until about a year ago. I stopped in my tracks. What. The. Hell…?
Then, last week, I decided to take advantage of the warmer-than-usual weather in Toronto and went to my favourite park to sit and read a book (and eat a croissant). In my peripheral vision, I saw something furry and white moving around the autumn leaves. It was the squirrel. It was foraging just a few feet away from my park bench.
I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
I started thinking: how does a pure white (not Albino, I’m told) squirrel survive? Surely it’s a fatal genetic inheritance which dogs and hawks have naturally preyed upon.
And yet, the white squirrel continued foraging. In fact, it took interest in my croissant and at one point crept below my feet looking for crumbs. I didn’t move: it’s the choice you make when you see something like this. You don’t want to spoil the moment reaching for your cellphone camera.
I posted the photos on my Facebook profile and suddenly people started commenting or sending me messages, some amazed, some shocked. Was this a joke? A missing evolutionary link? Am I that good with Photoshop?
There’s not much I can say. It’s a white squirrel. It lives by its own rules. All I know is that when I went back to the same spot the next day, expecting it to have moved in nomadic squirrel fashion to another part of the park, it was still there.
I wanted to ask it whether it knew what happened to the unicorns or the manticores. It was busy foraging however, so I left it to live its fascinatingly precarious life.
I saw a white squirrel on Friday in Baltimore, MD (USA) and I’d never seen one before either. It was pretty special to see one. The world if full of little miracles.
I very much appreciate your observation that it lives by its own rules, an observation potent enough to lead to a story. One rarely sees a squirrel of any color living by its own rules, thus does one become curious about the nature of squirrel rules.
Want to collaborate?
Squirrel Rules
by Matt & Shelly
Jennifer: it’s very odd. I walked past a couple on the sidewalk. I didn’t hear what the woman said, but the man answered: “What? Did you say a white squirrel?”. It seems I’ve crossed upon a squirrel-based meme.
Shelly: Sounds like a nice idea. I like how the title is reminiscent of “Mob Rule” when in fact it would seem to be about individuality (and being prone, as white squirrels must be). Interesting…
I was going to ask if it was Albino, so that answers that question. I hope that you get to see him/her on a regulat basis… I do feel a story coming on about this one 🙂
Call me White Squirrel. Some years ago–never mind how long precisely– having little or no acorns in my cache and nothing particular to interest me in Toronto, I thought it time to take me to a new park…
Towards the end of a sultry afternoon early in November a white squirrel came out of his little room in Trinity Bellwoods Park and turned slowly and somewhat irresolutely in the direction of a picnic bench…
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single white squirrel in possession of a good stash of nuts must be in want of a wife.
Not precarious life. Not fatal genetic flaw. The key evidence? Interest in your croissant. There is an evolutionary advantage to being extremely cute to humans. I’m thinking of my white cat.
Oh, and by the way: I’m white and a squirrel.
(snorting with laughter)