An Albino squirrel has made a football club's grounds its home.

Mother-of-two Savannah Boyce spotted the red-eyed rodent in Chatham Football Grounds, Palmerston Road, Chatham.

The 26-year-old said: "To be honest, when I first saw it, I thought it was a ferret.

"But when we got home a researched it I realised it was a really rare animal.

"Apparently there is only 1 in 1,000 chance in seeing one.

"My four-year-old daughter Mia loves it, she says it's our new family pet.

"We're quite new to the area, so we've only been to the park four times, but every time we go we see the squirrel."

Mia has named the pure white creature Snowy Lilly.

Trevor Burch, a fellow squirrel spotter said it can regularly be seen in the park collecting acorns.

White squirrels are a genetic mutation of the more common grey park dwellers.

This is caused by either leucism - a partial loss of pigmentation affecting the skin and hair.

Chatham's white squirrel seems to be albino - a congenital condition caused by an absence of melanin, so the fur is white but the eyes are bright red or pink.

There is believed to be only 50 white squirrels in the UK with a 1 in 100,000 chance of an albino or white squirrel being born.

But it is thought the numbers are higher than this.

According to the researcher behind www.whitesquirrels.co.uk she has 150 sightings on her records and she thinks there are more likely to be 500 in the UK.

Another white squirrel was spotted by Wendy Ruddle from Wigmore, Gillingham.

Escaped animals, unusual finds and news from the RSPCA can all be found here

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