Black Squirrel (1 Viewer)

Hello, my husband and I saw and got photos of a black squirrel a couple of weeks ago, we are in Mid Wales, in Powys and wondered if these are rare? as we have never seen one before, it comes to our bird feeders and eats the bits which drop to the floor, it arrives with a young grey squirrel and the black one is slightly smaller.
My photos are too big to upload and I am not sure how to make pictures smaller.

app on android called photo and picture resizer, really easy. playstore icon is a blue outline square with arrow top right

Hi Joan and a warm welcome to you from all the Staff and Moderators.

Re-sizing Pictures:

After you've done any other work on your pic (always a copy mind ) and cropped away any part of the picture you don't want, you can then re-size it. But don't crop to get the file size you want.

How you actually do it depends on what programs you have.

In Windows 7 you can right click on the image and there's an option to re-size (choose the smallest 800x600 - you can go bigger 1032 on the longest side I think, but Windows doesn't give you that option!). Adobe Photoshop: you have a better choice there, in the Image menu: Resize, you can actually choose the size you want, and the quality... always select medium.

Window 8: Right click on the image and select Edit from the drop down. Then select Image from the menu in the Paint programme that opens. You can then type in the number of pixels for the longest side. I usually choose 900 but you can go up to 1032.

Alternatively you could download the free program called FastStone or Picassa.

If you use a Mac, this page shows you how to do it: http://www.howtogeek.com/201638/use-your-macs-preview-app-to-crop-resize-rotate-and-edit-images/

I hope one of these ideas work for you. If not, try posting in the Computer subforum - I'm sure someone will have more suggestions for you. There's loads of methods depending what software you have.

Without seeing it, it's not possible to tell if the origins are of a red or grey squirrel, but it will be a melanistic variation. You can read more about these colour morphs in our Opus Dictionary

Black Squirrel Pictures

Hi and thank you for helping me to resize my pictures, I have done it before in the past but had forgotten, so thank you for your help and just hope I have attached the two pictures right for you to see.

Oh and I forgot to say that if they don't look very clear it is because I took the photos through our caravan window.

jape said:

app on android called photo and picture resizer, really easy. playstore icon is a blue outline square with arrow top right

Click to expand...

Sorry, I haven't got an android, but thanks for the help anyway.

Hi again Joan. I'm no mammal expert, but do see red ones here more than I ever see grey ones.

There's no ear tufts, so I'm presuming this one is basically a melanistic grey squirrel. But await input from the mammal guys who will put us both right no doubt. It might not be either of course LOL

Over here in the States, we have them and they are called Fox Squirrels. Some have white tips on their ears which I've seen but a lot of them don't.

white bread eating squirrel?

jape said:

white bread eating squirrel?

Click to expand...

Ha! ha! yeah, poor birdies don't get any when them squirrels are around.

KC Foggin said:

Over here in the States, we have them and they are called Fox Squirrels. Some have white tips on their ears which I've seen but a lot of them don't.

Click to expand...

No, this is a melanistic Eastern Grey Squirrel. In Washington DC you find normal Eastern Grey South of the Potomac and melanistic North of it, according to people I know who have done tours at the Embassy.

In Britain melanistic Eastern Grey is found in an arc from Cambridge through Woburn and on West, though this is the first record I've heard of as far West as Wales.

They are expanding and I have read that for genetic reasons the black ones are more sexually aggressive so tend to dominate breeding where they are present. The proportion tends to increase as a result, though where the balance point is (if there is one) I've no idea.

John

Thank you very much for your replies, I had a feeling it was from the greys, and yes we are in Powys, Mid Wales so they are up this way now.

Very interesting, thanks John.