Be careful.....i'm just a little guy!......by willvan
I happened to have a wide lens on my camera when I ran across this little guy/gal but decided to take a shot anyway. Totally different perspective than if I had a telephoto lens on the camera or had been using a superzoom. Fun and a good learning experience to work with what you have available. Bill
I have to tell you, Bill, these little guys have been my nemesis for years. Before we moved from our 130 year-old farmhouse back east, they were getting into attic & basement through the tiniest holes (which they enlarged quickly with their engineer's teeth) leaving behind heaps of spruce cone remains & the odd seeds they hadn't gobbled up. They also commandeered all bird feeders until I learned how to lure them with bird seed into 3 hav-a-hart traps I kept set at all times. I must have caught & transported a couple dozen of these critters (you have to drive them 6+ miles away or they supposedly come right back), so I feel a real kinship with this fellow. ;)
For a while we were free of them out on the Olympic Peninsula, but now one has adopted us, or rather our bird feeder out on the deck, driving our newly-adopted weener dog, who wants to go out & play with him, bananas.
The native Americans supposedly had a legend about red squirrels to the effect (I think) that all species had been transformed by the gods from some heavenly form - except red squirrels who were just too clever & mean & stuck with their original form.
The thing is - they're so danged *cute*! Again, a great capture.
~jp
Thanks jp, you made my day. John, I didn't think of the stairs as being humble but you're right and I really could have set the scene better in my comments. I am on a trail deep in the woods and was actually thinking more about running into a 300 pound black bear than a tiny squirrel. Many of our trails are impassable without these stairs that are built right into the hillside.
Bill
jrdu
10-Nov-2008 10:59
The stairs are humble too. What a perky little guy!
I like this highly original take on the ubiquitous squirrel pic very much. It catches his devilish attitude perfectly & enhances it with the offbeat perspective. In the thumbnail he looks like an insect so it's a real surprise to open the image. :)
~jp