One minute you’re the only white squirrel in town, and the next thing you know, your fellow anomalies are being spotted all over the valley.
You may recall that in early August I reported on the observation of a white squirrel on Wolf Creek Road. No sooner had that column posted to the internet than there was a flurry of reports of sightings in several locations not just in Winthrop, but throughout the valley.
(You may also recall that it was actually an albino red squirrel, according to my scientific sources, chiefly Scott Fitkin.)
The day after my column published, I heard from East Chewuch resident Val Stouffer, who sent some photos of a white squirrel in her neighborhood that she had taken in late June and early July. She says she didn’t see the little fellow again for a few weeks, until early August. Her neighbors, Rita Jensen and Gary Dodson, also reported seeing the squirrelly oddity.
The sightings of white squirrels at various locations around the valley have picked up noticeably.
At the time of her observation, Val had posted her photos on social media, after which she heard from a Mazama resident about a similar sighting in Mazama.
The next thing I knew, the bulletin board sparked up with speculation about additional glimpses of more white squirrels.
White squirrel chatter subsided for a few weeks, until Barri Bernier revived the conversation by texting me some photos this past weekend. There it was, proverbially bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, a snowy furball perched in a pine in the yard of Barri and glassblower Garth Mudge. “There are plenty of nuts around here,” Barri shared, “with the biggest one being Garth.”
With so many sightings in various locations throughout the valley, Scott tells me that these are likely independent critters, not all part of the same immediate family.
In looking up whether “family” was the right word to use in this situation — because when I use “family” it doesn’t always have the same connotation as the scientific use of “family” — I learned that a group of squirrels is called a “scurry.”
There are many reasons to curse the English language and all its irregularities, irrationalities, and complexities but then you learn something like this –a scurry of squirrels — and all, at least temporarily, is forgiven.
