When you first see black squirrels of the Northern Midwest, they actually look kind of unusual and seem like some sort of alien creature if you have always been accustomed to seeing grey and red squirrels. I 
frankly had never seen or heard of the black squirrels of the Northern Midwest before I moved to Battle Creek over 10 years ago. If you live in Maryland, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin you have probably seen them. There are even pockets of them in New Jersey and Connecticut.
The species apparently survives best in dense forests, where its black color offers it more protection, and the grey ones are said to have increased in population as the forests have been thinned by man. There are many legends about the black squirrels of the Northern Midwest.
One of which concerns Kellogg's Cereal founder Will Keith Kellogg, whom according to legend introduced the species into Battle Creek in an effort to destroy the local population of red squirrels. There is a similar story that says he did the same with the campus of Michigan State University with the same purpose.
When I first arrived in Battle Creek many years ago, I had someone tell me this story. I was amazed to find the same story being told on Wikipedia as well. If the story is true, then his intervention with nature was successful, because I have not seen any red squirrels around this side of the State since I have been living here. There also is quite a dense population of these black squirrels in this city, perhaps more than other areas of Southwest Mich
igan, and so there may be some truth to the legend.
I used to see them quite often in Ann Arbor, Michigan when I lived there, but the only ones I am familiar with here are the black and grey ones. I recently caught some photos of some of the little fellows sneaking around my backyard, and have included them in this blog post, both black and gray.
Apparently the two species will interbreed, but the black is the biologically dominant species, so the babies will be a black, or sometimes have black with a slight splash of grey or white. So black squirrels of the Northern Midwest are kind of original, and interesting. As a side note, I took all of these photos just a few hours ago before I wrote this blog with my Canon Powershot SX100 IS if you are a camera buff. These guys were feasting in my yard on all the acorns that have fallen with the leaves. Not bad eh? This last one is a grey one that was dining out with them.
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