A woman was shocked after spotting a rare white squirrel scurrying across her back lawn – the second UK sighting in TWO weeks.
Chemane Brier, 32, couldn’t quite believe her eyes on Saturday afternoon and immediately thought it was a cat or rabbit.
But the resident from Stoneclough, Greater Mancs., managed to compose herself and ran back inside to grab her phone to capture pictures of the nut-loving animal.
She said: “It was on the artificial grass in my back garden.
“I’ve never seen a white squirrel before in my life, let alone in my garden. We are lucky to have a large variety of wildlife in Stoneclough.”
The ghost-like creature is a white-coloured version of the eastern grey squirrel.
White squirrels are either albino or born with leucism, a mutated gene which turns them white but keeps their eyes black.
In a sea of five million squirrels across Britain, just a handful suffer from leucism.
This means that they do not suffer the sight problems associated with albino squirrels, which have pink eyes.
Experts say that white squirrels are more vulnerable to attack from predators as they have no natural camouflage.
There have been estimates there are only 50 across the country, though some claims have estimated there are even less.
White squirrels hit the headlines across the Uk last month when a couple from Surrey spotted one in their back garden.
Eastern grey squirrels in the US have a gene that makes their coats white.
Only one in 100,000 squirrels are estimated as being born albino.
