Neat.  Today I saw a bunch of students hefting watermelons down the hall.  Some had given up and were just rolling them along the floor lazily, like it was at the end of soccer practice.  Those wacky engineers – always so resourceful!

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After a breakfast of quick oats mashed with bananas with a dash of brown sugar and soy milk – for no other breakfast is acceptable these days – we whisk our little one off to daycare which is situated at a school in the lovely Niagara Street neighbourhood we used to live in.  It’s a downtown ‘west Queen west’ enclave of narrow turn-of-the-century pointy Victorians situated within walking distance of everything that makes our city so great.  The streets are lively and full of shops and restaurants including White Squirrel Coffee, home of the fair trade bean and the hand-held breakfast.   You can take your coffee across the road and sit on a bench in Trinity-Bellwoods Park to enjoy it; if you’re lucky, you may even see a white squirrel.

Trinity-Bellwoods is arguably the epicentre of Toronto’s white squirrel population.  You’re likely to see one even if you’re not in the park frequently.  I remember stopping dead in my tracks while walking through many years ago. There was a white squirrel climbing up a tree not 20 feet in front of me. What was my first thought?  Not “I should stand still and enjoy this unusual and rare sight,” or “the world is strange…and beautiful!”  Instead I fumbled frantically for my cell phone to take a picture and in my frenzy frighten the little guy so badly he ran away.  Rather than enjoy the moment I tried to capture it for posterity but then ruined everything.  No squirrel, no picture of squirrel.

Our gray and black squirrels are Eastern Grays and the whites are either just another colour variation or they’re true albinos.  The albinos would have pink eyes but I’ve never gotten close enough to notice. If they are albinos then the line likely wouldn’t be very hardy.  Sadly, they don’t live as long as the others because they are vision impaired and get into loads of trouble with predators or they fall out of trees when they’re young. If we are to believe Darwin, and we do, then the white squirrels of Trinity Bellwoods are probably just colour mutants and of healthy and hardy stock, like their black and gray brethren. Only prettier and more famous.

The colony seems to be growing and spreading out.  White squirrels have also been seen in Stanley Park a few blocks south, as is the one that I shot with my lousy cell-phone camera (see below).  Either Stanley Park squirrels have produced their own white gene or these intrepid types have moved here for the peace and quiet of a smaller park off of the beaten path.  If they travelled from Trinity-Bellwoods, then white must be a lucky non-colour because they would have had to cross Queen Street (presumably looking both ways), pass the 7-11 parking lot, scamper down the street and around the corner to Richmond, turn right at Stanley Terrace, cross Adelaide St. and run into the park without getting run over, eaten by a cat, chased by a dog or picked off by a hawk.

Isn’t it nice to see a recessive gene make its way into the dominant pool, don’t you think?   If there’s an underdog, I’ll cheer for it.  I love oddballs.