That’s nuts! Rare white squirrel that dwarfs its grey relations is spotted raiding a garden bird feeder

• Fran McGarry rumbled the rodent stealing from feeder at her Somerset home 
• The enormous squirrel is described as ’25 per cent bigger’ than grey species
• It’s colour is thought to come from its leucism – a lack of pigmentation in its skin 

An enormous rare white squirrel has been sighted ransacking a back garden bird feeder.

The snowy rodent was seen scaling the pole from which the cages were suspended before clawing at the nuts inside. 

But although the pesky animal raided the food with the skill of a seasoned burglar, it was rumbled by homeowner Fran McGarry.

Its mammoth size and bleached fur stood out among the greenery in the garden of Ms McGarry’s house in Peasedown St John, Somerset. 

A rare white squirrel scales the bird feeder pole in a back garden in Peasedown St John, Somerset

She described it as ‘about 25 per cent bigger than an ordinary squirrel’ but said it is not an albino because it does not have pink eyes.

Instead, it is thought to be leucistic, meaning its fur lacks pigmentation and results in the squirrel’s white colour.

Ms McGarry’s video shows the chalk white squirrel perched on a ledge roughly halfway up a the bird feeder pole. 

Its long bushy tail is drooped over the edge and it appears to be focused on the floor below it. 

Suddenly, a cat shoots up the base of the rod and clings on for a split second before letting go and dropping back down to the ground.

The enormous rodent, which is described as ’25 per cent bigger’ than its grey counterparts, droops its large bushy tail over the ledge of the bird feeder rod 

With a single jump, it leaps up on to the metal cage and begins clawing at the nuts inside 

It is unclear if it was planning to stalk the rodent, but, now that the feline has cleared off, the squirrel returns to the task of raiding the feeder.

With a single jump, it leaps about two feet into the air and grips on to the metallic cage which it then pinches nuts from.

It then returns back to the ledge and scans the ground, possibly for the cat, before bounding down.

Although Ms McGarry has only lived in the house for seven months, this is the second time she has spotted the white squirrel in the garden. 

This is the second time in seven months homeowner Fran McGarry has spotted the squirrel in her garden. Its black eyes distinguish it from an albino and suggest it suffers from a lack of pigmentation

White squirrels suffer from leucism, a mutated gene which turns their skin white but leaves their eyes black.  

There are around five million grey squirrels in Britain, but experts believe there are fewer than one in a million that have leucism.

Their eyesight is generally fine, unlike albinos whose signature pink or reddish eyes have usually developed abnormally and so they often struggle with depth perception and focusing on objects.  

Source: Read Full Article