After years of battling squirrels in my yard and porch (they're really semi-wild rodents of the worst sort in human settings), I may have to concede a wild corner.

For whatever reason, our town is seeing an increasing number of black gray squirrels. I saw the first about two blocks away nearly two years. Now we have at least three, maybe four, within a couple blocks of our house.

And there is something more endearing about black squirrels, maybe it is the starkness of them, than the regular old bushy-tailed gray marauders of the feeders.