Jessa and I recently travelled through Brevard, North Carolina, known for its white squirrels; obviously, we had to spend some time looking. By happenstance, we were there a few days prior to the White Squirrel Weekend, but didn't feel we were missing out on anything. ("Festivals are bogus, man. This is so commercial; it should be all about the bushytails!" In truth, we're just not much for crowds.)
We already knew of a few white-squirrel hotspots, so we started with Brevard College, where we saw a couple of standard-issue greys but no whites. Then over to Silvermont Mansion and Park, where again we only found "normals". Franklin Park was altogether a bust, so we began retracing our steps, and on the edge of the Brevard College campus Jessica spotted a flash of white on the lawn. We'd already had one or two false alarms of the Styrofoam-cup variety, but this one did in fact prove to be a white squirrel; we both got good looks, albeit brief, and Jess even managed a photo as it went up a pine tree, but of a quality usually reserved for Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster:
Fortunately, we still had a bit of time, and found more cooperative squirrels in a residential neighbourhood not far from the college.
Brevard's squirrels are not albinos, nor a distinct species or even subspecies, just a population of grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) with a high incidence of leucism; it is estimated that approximately thirty percent of Brevard's squirrels are leucistic. Whites and normals interact freely, and most if not all the white squirrels we saw had some grey markings, usually on the head and often running down the back as well.
In this sequence, a squirrel runs across the lawn with what looked to be a peanut, and caches it in the ground: pat pat pat pat pat.
The rest of the photos—a mix of mine and Jessa's, mostly hers as usual—tell no particular story; just a gallery of shots we liked. Enjoy!
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