Today while I was walking Murphy we spotted yet another albino critter –this time a pure white chipmunk.
What’s the Deal?
I don’t know what it is about Murph. I don’t know if he draws them to him because he’s a white critter magnet of some kind. I don’t know if it’s because we take so many walks and that puts us in the right places to spot them. I don’t know if it has something to do with where we live –that maybe albino animals are more prevalent in the South.
All I know is that I’ve walked dogs most of my life. First with Mackie, then with Budly. I never saw a white animal in the wild with them. It wasn’t until after I turned 30 and had Murphy that they started manifesting everywhere we go.
The White Squirrel
This was the first time I saw a white animal in the wild –just romping in someone’s front yard.
It was a couple of blocks up from our house in Jacksonville. Murph and I had a route we liked to walk, which included venturing into another neighborhood. Murph liked it because there happened to be tons of squirrels for him to chase, and the first time he went after the white one I thought it was a cat.
Until it scampered up a fence, jumped to a branch, and then perched looking down at us.
I got so excited and told my across the street neighbor Roxanne, who informed me that several years earlier there used to be a white squirrel that lived on our block. She surmised the one I had seen may very well be a descendant.
And it very well could have been.
The White Deer
About a year after we moved here Wayne and I heard tales about a white deer that lived near the Concord Park area.
Last December I wrote about how Murphy and I went in search of the elusive white deer after a fellow walker in Crockett Park (which adjoins Concord) told us where and when to spot it.
Since then we’ve seen it many times. It was just a fawn then and had a couple of sibling fawns we’d see too. At first I assumed it was a doe, but this summer on one of our walks we came across the herd, the white deer with them, and saw “she’d” sprouted antlers. Turns out the white deer’s a male.
The White Chipmunk
Then today Murph spotted the white chipmunk, which at first I thought was a rat from its profile. I figured it out when it bopped off in the way chipmunks do.
I shook my head and asked Murph how he does it.
Because I’m truly amazed. However he does it, it’s pretty cool. There’s so much I’ve become jaded to and take for granted as I age, but there are times –such as today– when I stand in awe and am reminded what a beautifully mysterious universe we inhabit.
Questions to Readers
Have you ever seen an albino animal in your neighborhood? If so, what kind was it?
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