Crocus, catkins and nervy rodents...

There is less that 8 hours of sunlight now available at my latitude, with mid-winter almost here, but to look around you would think otherwise. Crocus are sprouting a good three inches above ground in a local park; catkins are hanging from a tree in a nearby garden and something or other is flowering in my own back yard: all signs of spring. On top of that insect activity hasn't really stopped, due, no doubt, to the mild weather.

What doesn't change is the voracious appetite of the local grey squirrels, and once again I tempt them before my lens with peanuts. I'm shooting from ground level this time - tripod legs splayed out flat - as I want to give the images a squirrel's perspective. For some reason they are more wary of my camera set up this way than they were when everything towered above them last week, but eventually the idea of a free lunch overcame any apprehension on their part.

To give them a greater comfort zone I am using a remote release to take the shots. This allows me to back away from the camera, having framed and pre-focused on one particular spot. Letting the rodents come to me is the thinking behind the setup, and as soon as one does, I shoot. This technique works well until the shutter fires: the click sending most of them scurrying away to a safer distance, but even this unexpected racket is soon dismissed by the more inquisitive, and I start getting the images I hoped for.

Shooting blind like this is always hit or miss, and my success rate is very poor, with nearly all the frames unusable because of subject blur. On the woodland floor light levels are always low, and these nervous animals are just so fast once they get on the move. For this picture I had balanced a nut on top of the lens hood, and whilst the squirrel was preoccupied with risk assessment I was able to get at least one sharp frame.

Time for a rethink, I fancy.



12-24mm f/4 AF-S Nikkor. 1/125 second at f/11. ISO 640. Tripod and remote release.



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