A Black Squirrel

This was about 4 months back. It was mid-November; winter season when the sun sets by 5 PM and it gets darker within the next few minutes. I wrapped up my work and called a taxi to drop me back to my hotel.

The cabbie reached my office in 10 mins and I walk out to hop into the taxi to face the boring evening ahead. There's a redwood tree just outside the building entrance. Oh yeah I was in the Bay area of California. I must tell that its a quite new seasonal experience.

Last time while i was in CA, it was summer and it was amazing to see sun set only by 9 PM; this time; as my luck would have it; I got to visit during winter. The sun sets off by 5 PM. Extremes!! Oh yeah going from India, its a new experience.
Ohoo...am I deviating? Lemme get back. Yeah I was telling about the redwood tree. I walked out to reach my taxi and I saw a cute black squirrel. It was startled for a moment; dropped off the food it was holding in its tiny limbs; and scampered around as I passed a bit close to it. I was excited. I have never seen a black squirrel until now. This squirrel was a bit bigger than the Indian striped squirrel. It was completely black -glossy as if it just jumped out of a tub of varnish, no stripes on its back as the Indian squirrels. I managed to quickly take few snaps of the squirrel and this picture is one of my best shot ever. I was happy and all smiles; I saw a black squirrel for the first time and managed to get a very good picture of it.

My cabbie was smiling and enjoying my childish behaviour all this while. I used to see the squirrel everyday after this, generally during evenings. I later read that black squirrels are common in mid western North America.