When I lived on 38th Street, in the Burleith neighborhood of Georgetown, my quiet street butted up against an overgrown park. A squirrel scolded me on my way to my 8:45 class - the same one -- and I always knew which one it was. That's because this squirrel wasn't a mottled grey or a brassy red, it was jet black, with a white little tuft at the end of its question-mark tail.

I had never seen a black squirrel before I become a DC transplant. I spotted my first one as it scampered across Copley Lawn on a bright September afternoon. I thought I was losing my mind, but there it was, clear as day and dark as midnight, surveying the lawn with its marble eyes for scraps of dropped food. After that first one, I started to see black squirrels everywhere. I was fascinated. I started asking other students where they came from.