h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

They're cute. They're funny. Best of all, they're outside, and not in my house.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pKrwr6xgTo

Love this backyard safari! Black squirrels look evil though.

Oh, Fred's not evil - he's an absolute sweetheart. That red squirrel is evil, though - chases the grey squirrels all over the place, and he's half their size.

Shortly after this footage was taken, but when I didn't have my camera out, the black cat from across the street slammed into the rain spout at the side of the porch. He seemed a bit dazed, then embarrassed - he was chasing a chipmunk, and it outran him and dashed under the porch.

Lots of action this morning.

should be selling tickets mate, latest tourist attraction!

Great video - fascinating to see the different rodents. Fred certainly got a good meal out of those sunflower seeds!

The cat and the chipmunk sound like some sort of cartoon plot

Thanks, Sasha. Yes - worse than that, that black cat looks like the cat from the Cheezburger site, only different in colour.

I envy you your squirls and cheapmonkeys.

and also

In the 1980's when I was "on" the CB radio etcI had some friends who were 's at our local hospital. They lived in a high-rise block of flats near the centre of town
They had a pet ratand because the s drank they always put a bottle cap full on the floor for the rat - hic!
One night when talking on CBI asked how the rat was ? they replied - he's dead
I asked (jokingly - did he die of alcoholic poisoning ?)
They replied - NO! He was pissed and walked off the balcony - 4 floors up

Aww. Poor !

The shots of the red squirrel in the sunlight with a dark background were excellent...

we don't see any black squirrels in these parts...strange looking...I saw the first one traveling in the northeast three years ago and looked them up...just a genetic mutation in gray squirrels they say...like blue eyes.

Thanks, Phred.

About the black squirrels - that's what my brother-in-law the Earth Science teacher keeps telling everybody.

Because the black-coat gene is dominant, a squirrel will be black if one or both of its pigment-forming genes is the black version.
Blue eyes are recessive....

That's why Fred showed up this year with Fred, Jr, also a black squirrel.

We are, of course, assuming genders, which are probably wrong. We're allowed, because the gender of the squirrels is their own business, and they could care less what we say about them.