The Quiet Picture

I had a near miss with the squirrels today. (Whether it’s a relief or a disappointment, depends on how fed up of squirrels you are…) But I think the work is now starting to pay off; the images are definitely getting better. While I’m learning squirrel behaviour, the squirrels are learning a few tricks of their own. Jackie demonstrated the reason why I’ve lately found a lot of the seed cups tilted – she sits right on it!

So now you also know my setup. The green wires to hold the cup under the perch – and at this point I can also confess that this particular perch (the branch above the squirrel, not below…) is actually a fake. Not sure if you can tell it if you don’t know?

Anyway, I waited for two hours for the first squirrel to make its appearance. I was just going to give up and go out when they turned up, so I spent the rest of the morning shooting squirrels.

Another thing I thought I had given up on is skiing. I’ve been procrastinating again so I haven’t found a solution to my ski boot problem, but at least my pain tolerance should be high by now so I decided to do a trip – the new powder snow that had fallen overnight was just way too inviting to resist.

(Yes, I did get blisters again. Now I’m definitely done with skiing for this winter.)

The snowmobilers have also been out in force. They leave no doubts about that – the tracks are everywhere. I could hardly believe my eyes when I found a patch of untouched snow. I guess there are two ways to appreciate the pristine snow cover: you can admire nature’s beauty, or you can leave your mark on it.

Jackie was in a playful mood and kept changing her position and pose constantly. It made for a good variation in the pictures, but it was a struggle to keep up sometimes and I had to make some compositional sacrifices to nail the focus. For example, this picture was composed with the eye dead in the middle, so I had to resort to cropping to fix the composition.

I’ll be posting some squirrel images I took yesterday. I’m still trying to figure out if they’re any better than any other squirrels pictures I’ve taken so far. A bit sharper anyway, because there’s enough light to manage low ISOs and/or fast shutters.

Blackie was the first guest to arrive

I’ve been complaining about how the squirrels eat the bird food, but now I got yet another thief to reckon with – the deer have discovered the squirrel food! I’ve never caught them in the act, but there’s no question about it. The hoof prints around the perches reveal them, and the deer also lick the food cups clean while the squirrels always leave seed shells behind them. So the squirrels gobble up the bird food, and the deer gobble up the squirrel food. I’m wondering if I should put up a deer feeding station next winter. Maybe I’ll get moose to eat their food…

But the squirrels do get their share anyway, and today was just about the best squirrel photography day I’ve ever had. The sun was shining from behind a thin cloud cover, casting a light that was not strictly sunshine but it was definitely not overcast either. To top it off, that thin cloud cover produced a light snowfall so I got some snowflakes to decorate the pictures. I’m gonna have to get back to these pictures in a few days… sometimes it’s hard to have an opinion right after the shoot. But I still have a feeling that these are among the best squirrel pictures I’ve taken so far!

Slight crop from left and bottom

Got plenty of sunshine today, but not so many squirrels. For a while I thought that they would be a complete no-show, just a reminder to me why I gave up my wildlife photographer dreams years ago. Landscapes and flowers don’t have feet!

Ironically, this is the time of the year I’ve been waiting for with the squirrels. All those pictures I’ve taken so far, it’s just been preparation for these sunny mornings… find the best perches, best angles, learn their behaviour… So I hope that they won’t be all too busy with procreation to come for a quick snack every once in a while on a sunny Saturday or Sunday morning!

Jackie with blue sky in the background (cropped a little bit from bottom and right)

It’s been a sunny week, but it figures that the clouds arrive for the weekend. We got just a little bit of sunlight yesterday morning, it’s all gone today. The good news is that now that the sun comes up a bit higher in the sky, there’s a fair amount of light even when it’s overcast. Consolation prize…

Jackie in sunlight (cropped from left and right)

Blackie in overcast light (cropped from left and right)

I don’t know what title to give to my squirrel posts anymore… squirrels, squirrels and more squirrels. Well, I’ve got nothing else to shoot when the weather is like this!

The first furry visitor to the feeder was Jackie, but it was still too dark for photography. When it got a bit better with light, Blackie showed up and now I was able to confirm that Blackie indeed is a girl, and really is a lot bigger than the other squirrels (males included), it’s easy to see even when there’s no other squirrel sitting next to her for comparison.

Blackie (slight crop from left and bottom)

Shortly after Blackie left, Stubby-Tail showed up. If you compare Stubby-Tail’s tail to Blackie’s, you’ll see that it’s shorter and the tip is oddly-shaped. Stubby-Tail’s ears are also a bit worn and he has a scar in the left ear (can be seen here), so he seems to be the veteran of the pack.

Stubby-Tail

And finally, Freddie came along. I must say that Freddie is the prettiest squirrel of the lot (together with Jackie), mostly thanks to that beautiful red fur of his. But I’m not quite sure how these frontal shots work…!

Freddie (cropped from left and right)

Now that the squirrel mating season is approaching, I’ve been able to determine the sex of the squirrels. Reddie (which I renamed Freddie) and Stubby-Tail are most definitely boys, there’s no hiding the fact, if you know what I mean… By that definition, the squirrel in the picture is a girl. Initially I thought that this is Blackie, but after closer inspection, I think it’s not – Blackie is even darker, and the ear tufts are longer. But light can play tricks… we’ll see what they look like in sunlight (which would already hit the perch, if only it wasn’t overcast every weekend).

I’m finally starting to tell my squirrels apart. Now that I have them pegged down, it’s actually quite easy to recognise them. “Blackie” is the biggest of the bunch, and darker than the other two. “Reddie” and “Stubby” (or “Stubby-tail”) are otherwise much the same, but easy to separate thanks to Stubby’s tail – looks like Stubby has lost an inch or so of the tail, so it’s not only shorter but the tip is also more square than round.

Blackie – dark ears and tail

Reddie – more orange coloured ears and tail

I’ll post a picture of Stubby the next time I get one.

We have been getting plenty of snow lately. In fact, since the New Year’s Eve, there hasn’t been any 24-hour period that we wouldn’t have gotten some new snow. It doesn’t mean that we now have an excessive snowcover, because the snowing hasn’t been that intensive and then in between the snowfalls, the snowcover has melted or just packed down on itself. Anyway, I measured half a meter yesterday, so we now have more snow than we had at best last winter (47.5 cm in March).

I also got around to some skiing today

* * *

Why “You shoulda bought a squirrel”? Because I can’t look at a squirrel without thinking about Rat Race!

Canon 300 f4L IS, ISO 640, f4 @ 1/160

There’s not a lot of light but there’s even less subjects to shoot. So the squirrels are getting fat on the seeds and nuts…

Under these lighting conditions, I have to contend with long shutter speeds despite a high ISO. The 300mm lens has Image Stabilisation (IS) and I make use of it, hoping that it will compensate for the slow shutters. I’m using a beanbag but sometimes it feels like I’m making the rig shake just by holding my finger on the trigger. Thus, use IS. There’s just one problem. For those of you not familiar with Canon’s IS technique, it was introduced in 1995. The 300mm f4L lens that I’m using was one of the first ones to benefit from it, but since then Canon has of course refined the technology and these days it’s a lot smarter and quieter than it used to be. For example, my 24-105mm f4L has IS which can be left on even when it’s mounted on a tripod, because the IS mechanism can detect it and it won’t try to stabilise when the rig is steady as it is. And there’s my problem. The old IS in the 300mm is pretty dumb so it will work hard – even when the rig is steadied on a beanbag and held down by hand…!

This is where you tell me that I should’ve known better. I could’ve gotten sharper squirrel images all along by trusting my beanbag and hands and switching off the IS.

Luckily it’s not like the old squirrel images are completely ruined, I mean do have some standards and the shaky pictures can only end up in the bin. But compare the old IS images with these new non-IS images I took today… DUH!