Albino squirrel spotted in Surrey churchyard in same spot as previous rare resident

Albino squirrels are a very rare phenomenon of nature, with only one in every 100,000 of the animals being born with the genetic condition .

It is even rarer to spot two in the same place, so Gomshall resident David Stretch could not believe his eyes when he spotted a white squirrel in a Dorking churchyard - the same old haunt as the town's famous Dorking squirrel Albi.

Albi could often be spotted in St Martin’s Churchyard before he was sadly killed by a car more than a decade ago in October 2009. Not many albino squirrels have been spotted in the area since.

The striking creatures have no melanin pigment in their skin, causing them to have bright pink eyes, and fluffy snow white fur.

David said it was “such an amazing sight to see”, adding that his wife and daughter even saw Albi, the original white squirrel “a few years back before he sadly died.”

He saw the new albino squirrel while cutting through the churchyard, and caught his first sighting of it "happily eating and husking through the trees.”

In April 2021, another white squirrel was spotted in exactly the same place. Dorking resident Paul Smart said at the time: "It was the first time I had ever seen an albino squirrel.

"I was just on an Easter walk and had cut back through the church grounds, where there are often plenty of grey squirrels. The white squirrel was just playing with the grey ones behind the church under the trees.

"I have showed the pictures to my friends and family but no one else has ever seen an albino squirrel either - it’s so rare. I did a bit of research when I got home and apparently there are only about 50 in the UK."

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