On May 7, 2020, I published an article about having seen a black squirrel and blue jay in a small playground in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, in May of 2000 or 2001 (I also published a haiku based on the story). The story stuck with me for years because both blue jays and black squirrels are relatively uncommon sites on walks in my area of Brooklyn. I have seen a few more blue jays than usual as of late, but black squirrels are still very uncommon. For that reason, I was very surprised to see a black squirrel in a tree somewhere near the vaguely defined border between the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Park Slope and Gowanus.
I took the above photo with my Teracube 2e phone on April 2, 2022. The picture is a touch fuzzy, but I was glad to see that you can clearly see the squirrel’s black coloration (and also that it is enjoying a snack). My understanding is that black squirrels are most common in New York City in parts of Manhattan and the Bronx. They are distinctly uncommon around me, but there is at least one running around the Park Slope-Gowanus area.