Animal #3 — Eastern Gray Squirrel

sciurus carolinensis

September 28, 1981 — 4:00 pm

Des Plaines, Illinois — home

This Eastern Gray Squirrel was foraging on patio in backyard, no doubt looking for the sunflower seeds I scattered. It was a bit smaller than the nearby Fox Squirrel and proportionately thinner. It was gray overall with some buff mixed in on its back. Its undersides were white, and it had a white edge on its bushy tail instead of the buff-orange edge on the tail of the Fox Squirrel.

A black phase Eastern Gray Squirrel, the first one I’d ever gotten a good look at, hung around the wood lot outside my office window in the fall of 1993.

Eastern Gray Squirrel - black phase

Here’s the standard gray phase.

Eastern Gray Squirrel - 3/08

Years later, I saw one of the famous white squirrels in Olney, Illinois.

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