By Daily Mail
Last updated at 11:16 PM on 16th July 2010
Red squirrels are already a rare sight.
But this one stands out a little more than most.
With a distinctive white ring around its tail, the startling creature makes its plain red counterparts seem rather ordinary.
Mick Durham, who snapped this picture, said the plucky red squirrel, who he nicknamed 'ringtail', was one of a kind
Wildlife photographer Mick Durham said: 'I first spotted the squirrel with the white ring band in winter last year and I nicknamed it "Ringtail".
'It certainly is one of a kind - this sort of variation is extremely rare.
‘The squirrel seems to be unaffected by it and other squirrels treated it as they do all the others - it certainly wasn’t shy.
‘As a wildlife photographer I was very excited to see it because unusual looking animals always make for interesting photography.
‘There are only a few houses near me and some of my neighbours saw it passing through their gardens but it seemed to spend more time with us - like all the other squirrels.
He joked: ‘This is no doubt because we feed them - it costs us a fortune in peanuts and hazelnuts.’
The 55-year-old, who took the photo in his garden in New Abbey, near Dumfries, added: 'The white is very definitely "natural" in that it is how the squirrel's tail colour has developed, but it is not normal.'
The red squirrel is slightly smaller than the more common grey squirrel - its body grows up to nine inches long and it weighs up to 12oz.
The colour of its coat can vary from black to red depending on the time of year and location. The red coat is most common in the UK.
The squirrel’s fur is shed twice a year, becoming thinner during the hotter months and thicker in the winter.
Numbers have drastically decreased to around 140,000 in the UK in recent years - 85 per cent of which are found in Scotland.
The decline is partly due to the invasion of the American grey squirrel, which carries a disease fatal to its red counterpart.
The gradual loss of the red squirrel’s natural woodland habitat has also been blamed for the decrease in its numbers.
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