rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Over the past summer, I've become fascinated with squirrels. They don't have nearly the variety that birds do, but their behaviors seem so much more varied, almost human-like. The one squirrel I've had a hard time observing is the one living in my own backyard; I'm guessing that s/he still remembers our conflicts two years ago when I had this silly idea that only birds should use the birdfeeder. {The "compromise" is that I eventually got a professionally-made squirrel proof feeder and re-purposed the old feeder for squirrels}.

My wife works on a college campus with lots of black walnut trees - since squirrels seem to like these even more than oak trees {and the school also has students who are willing to ignore the "do not feed squirrels" rule}, they have lots of squirrels, most of whom are fairly tame.

The last time I picked my wife up, I arrived early with the intention of stalking squirrels. I even brought my AdaptAll 60-300mm + AdaptAll doubler, figuring I could certainly find something within reach of my effectively 120-600mm lens. It turned out that I was really over "armed"; here are a few pictures of a little guy who allowed me within 200mm range as soon as he became familiar with me. The primary weakness of what I brought, besides my having to MF, was that he was in a heavily shaded area, so I had to use an ISO of 6400, really on the edge of what my Pentax K-30 can do {I really do need to look into the K-70}

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missinglinq

One of my favorite tee-shirts has a squirrel on the front above the text 'Excuse me, but the bird feeder is empty!'

Love the second shot...looks like the boy is sporting a mullet hairdo!

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Thank you for your comment.

I was almost tempted to video him for a few minutes as he reduced that nut he was chewing on to nothing ... but, then it was nothing.

tramsey Loc: Texas

He's so fat that when he walks I bet he waddles. Great shoots

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

That's kind of what they want at this time of year - in a few months the feast will be over- fresh food will be nonexistent, and the stuff they buried will be under more snow than dirt.

sailorsmom Loc: Souderton, PA

Very nice shots, rehess! I've been trying to get a good shot of "our" squirrel in our courtyard, but haven't gotten any as good as yours!

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

I'm guessing I have the benefit of months of care provided by the {female} students at this college, so he doesn't expect bad things from humans.