Out in the dark

I don't often see the unexpected in this quiet little village, but the other night...

Rain. Heavy, cold drops from a darkened winter sky sparkling under orange street lights. Flashes of lightning and the deep, dissatisfied rumble of thunder, though it's miles away.

Will we get more flooding? Will it snow? The bitter air feels like it, but we're at sea level. No snow, though I can... eh? What? No... way!

Across the street, sitting up, washing it's face. Dash a few metres, stop, wash, bound away into the undergrowth. Black tail all a bristle, dark grey body under the orange light. Head, small with pointed ears and front paws smaller than the back. A... squirrel?

I've been to the U.S. and taken photos of the black squirrel - so cute - a red one with tufted ears, sitting in a fir tree in Arizona, and been chastised by a grey one, recently, in England. I know what a squirrel looks like.

But I'm home, in Australia, and a long way from any zoos; a coupla hundred kilometres in fact. So what is a squirrel doing here? I went off to check my Australian mammal book - for when I'm out walking in the bush to identify species - and low, there is a picture of a grey squirrel! Colour me amazed. Escapees, apparently, live in deciduous trees in metropolitan Sydney, but that's about it; they're rare even in Sydney.

I'm guessing the rodents are moving south. While I think they're as cute as can be, they're feral and a problem for native animals.

I'm still shaking my head. What else is out there?