The blonde tail on the squirrel seems very unusual, is that a normal colour variant in Britain? Never seen that on the continent.A nice roadside pine marten late one night and lots of photogenic red squirrels from my recent trip to Scotland
It's bleaching, when the tails moult you can see the proper colour (matching the rest of the fur or darker) come through progressively down the length of the tail. "Supposedly" is right!The blonde tail is supposedly characteristic of the original British race, Sciurus vulgaris leucurus
In that instance, it would still be a typical feature of the British ssp. though, since AFAIK tail bleaching doesn't occur in other populations.It's bleaching, when the tails moult you can see the proper colour (matching the rest of the fur or darker) come through progressively down the length of the tail. "Supposedly" is right!
John