White Squirrels of Illinois

We’ve seen them for years in our neighborhood – blurs of white streaking across the grass of a neighbor’s lawn or tucked into the branches of a tree. Could it be a plastic bag carelessly thrown away? What about some tufts of insulation blowing in the breeze? Maybe it’s the ghost of a departed pet scurrying around? But the truth behind these mysterious sightings is pretty magical – it’s a family of White Squirrels.

I’m not sure how many white squirrels live in our neighborhood, but based on the differences in fur, there have to be at least two. These are not Albino squirrels with their tell-tale pink eyes. What we have are white variants of the Eastern Gray Squirrel with a more common condition called Leucism. While Albinism affects all the melanin production of an animal’s skin cells, Leucism only causes a partial loss of pigmentation, resulting in white patches or spots.

When I see the white squirrels, it’s almost always in the morning when I’m on my way to work. I know I should be content to just witness a white squirrel with my own eyes, but that’s not how it works for obsessive photographers like myself. A photo must be captured! (or in my case, “75 photos must be captured!”)

With my trusty Nikon riding shotgun, I creep out of the neighborhood hoping for another chance encounter. Timing is everything in wildlife photography, especially when shooting something as unique as a leucistic squirrel (if that’s not a band name, it should be!) It must be much easier to get a shot like this if you live in Olney, Illinois renowned for its large population of true albino squirrels, or in Brevard, North Carolina where a third of the squirrel population is leucistic.

The average lifespan of an Eastern Gray squirrel living in the wild is 6-12 years and up to 20 years living in captivity. An albino or leucistic squirrel living in the wild faces a shorter lifespan thanks to their reduced ability to blend in with their surroundings. There are only a few in our little unprotected village wilderness, and I’m not the only one creeping on them. There are a lot of predators like coyotes, owls, cats, snakes and hawks looking to snack on some squirrels.

In 2020, I spied a white squirrel out in the distance and was very happy with the details after cropping in close to the critter.

Like most wild animals, the squirrels get nervous when humans get up in their business, so they tend to skitter away when I stick my camera out the car window. Luckily my Tamron lens can zoom in pretty far for some cute shots, but it’s still more distance than I’d like to have.

My persistence in lugging my camera around with me every morning finally paid off this year when I got my closest shots so far of this mystical-looking creature!

Even though I got the shot I wanted of the white squirrel, I’m still a wildlife photographer and will never have enough of the shots. Even with all the squirrel photos in my gallery, you can still catch me creeping down the road every morning watching for flashes of white.

• Legend says that sighting a white squirrel is a positive omen symbolizing change (and the need to prepare for it) as well as good luck coming your way!
• The odds of seeing a white squirrel in the wild are about 1 in 10,000.
• A group of squirrels is called a scurry.
• In Norse mythology, Ratatoskr is a squirrel who runs up and down the world tree, Yggdrasil, to carry messages between the eagles perched at the top and the serpent, Níðhöggr, who lives beneath one of the tree’s three roots.