Walking across the old cemetery recently, I spotted a red squirrel. Of course it wouldn’t stop and pose for me on the ground, but I managed to catch sight of it up in a tree, and zoomed in a few shots more or less randomly. Especially one of them came out much better than I was able to see with my bare eye from the ground. So I have to give credit to the ‘new’ camera that I bought back in May (with 30x optical zoom). My old camera could not have done it! (The collage below is from the original photos. The one above made from cropped/enlarged images. I forgot to also take a photo of the whole tree for comparison, because I had to keep my focus on the squirrel, so as not to lose sight of it… It’s a very high tree!)
The name “Squirrel Nutkin” is borrowed from Beatrix Potter, of course. Her story, illustrations included, can be found online here: “This is a Tale about a tail…” I just read it, and have to confess I found it hard to make head or tail of it. It’s really quite nutty!!! ; )
9 comments:
Monica, you're nuts :-D
Seriously, these are great pictures. I often see squirrels around my neighbourhood, but of course I never have my camera at hand.
Very good distance pictures! I have never seen a red squirrel, all of ours are grey. They say the greys are making the reds more scarce. Love the tail! I must go back and read this story again.
Its so long since I read "Squirrel Nutkin". I must read it again. When I was young it was unusual to see a grey squirrel. Now they are everywhere (even in our garden). The red squirrels of my youth are now confined to a few English colonies and parts of Scotland.
I liked the name and wondered where it came from.. he is a cutie and your new camera does work well
Some luck involved too, Meike, besides a camera with enough zoom. :)
Ginny, I don't think we have any grey squirrels here. I see squirrels every now and then in the old cemetery where I came across this one, they just aren't easy to catch with the camera. They run very fast and have usually escaped to the top of a high tree before I even get my camera out of the bag... ;)
John, as far as I know the invasion of grey squirrels hasn't spread to Sweden. I'm not sure how the red one's status is today compared to my childhood. I don't think it's listed as threatened; and we have a lot of forests in Sweden. I am very rarely in the forest myself nowadays though!
Sandra, I was surprised myself when I got the photos up on my screen, because from the ground I was just about able to guess where the squirrel was, and I did not really believe I would manage to get a picture of its face!
What fun shots!
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