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Buckden Roundabout
August 2019
Black Squirrels in Buckden
There has been a lot of interest in black squirrels around Buck-
den recently, with posts on the Buckden Residents Facebook
page. They have been seen for years in the village, especially
around the Valley and near the doctors’ surgery, but there
seem to be more this year. Have they increased or moved fur-
ther afield? Certainly, in recent years in our garden in Mill
Road, we have had the occasional black one visiting, just pass-
ing through, but this year we have at least three black individu-
als who have set up home in our trees. An adult took up resi-
dence in the spring and in May two beautiful black babies
emerged from a hole in our dead horse chestnut tree. We see
them all daily and the twins still hang out together.
So, who are they and where do they come from? I am no wild-
life expert, so I turned to Google. Apparently the first sighting
of a black squirrel in the UK was in 1912 in either Hertfordshire
or Bedfordshire, depending on which article you read. It is
thought that the current population is probably descended
from escapees from a menagerie of exotic animals. They then
spread north and east. In 2010, they were believed to make
up 50% of the squirrel population in areas around Cambridge
and have now spread further.
According to an article in the Telegraph in 2014, researchers
from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge report that there is
one difference genetically between our familiar grey squirrels
and the black ones:
“The mutation in pure black squirrels, which are no
threat to greys and can mate with them, is inherited
from both parents and has a piece missing which is in-
volved in producing pigment. This makes their fur re-
main black rather than develop white and orange
stripes which gives grey squirrels their coat.
In grey squirrels the pigment gene works by producing
two hormones - one which turns a switch on to produce
black fur and another which turns this off, so that white
and orange can be produced - creating the stripes.
In black squirrels the missing piece of the gene means
this 'switching off' process never happens and their fur
remains jet black.”
When they first appeared, it was gleefully declared that black
squirrels would take over, “giving Britain's grey population a
taste of their own medicine", supposedly punishing them for
previously wiping out the red squirrel population. That seems
to me a bit unfair on the greys, as they were not to know that
they carried the parapox virus which was fatal to red squirrels.
Loss of woodland over the last century, road traffic and preda-
tors are all thought to have been threats to the red squirrel
too, which are surely not the fault of the grey squirrels!
However, although research is continuing, it seems that now
there’s doubt about early theories that the black variety were
spreading fast, and were fitter, faster, more competitive and
aggressive. The greys and blacks live amicably alongside each
other and interbreed.
We are happy to have them around – our garden is a happier
and more interesting place with them here, black and grey.
We love to watch them filling their spare time (having already
filled their little bellies with our apples, hazelnuts and bird
food), bouncing off trees, zigzagging at full speed over the
grass, wrestling sticks, seeing off innocent blackbirds just for
the fun of it, and generally having a ball of a time. All squirrels
are destructive little creatures, but they give us far more pleas-
ure than pain.
Lesley MacAndrew
(Photos by Alec MacAndrew)
Twin black squirrel babies
Black squirrel in Mill Road garden
Buckden Wildlife