Category: animals Page 3 of 6

Don and I took our lunch on a nature trail yesterday, looking for animals to shoot … photographically, of course. We tried to move along the trail quietly so as not to disturb and frighten-off our quarry. So there we were, standing on the trail, looking around us when this incredibly loud pecking erupted from above us. I was startled, to put it mildly. Looking up, we saw this lovely read-head. As near as I can tell from the various birdwatching sites on the Web, it’s a yellow-bellied sapsucker. Yes, that’s a real bird rather than a name made up to sound funny.

4M6C0211.CR2: 5D Mk.III, EF 400mm 1:5.6L @ 1/1250, f/5.6, 400 ISO

When it started pecking again, the forest paparazzi were out in full force as shutters clacked in continuous mode trying to capture its staccato movement. As shown here, its head is back, primed for a peck.

IMG_1099.CR2: 30D, EF 70 – 200mm 1:4L IS @ 200mm, 1/100, f/4, 100 ISO

Yesterday morning I went to the library. As I approached my building upon my return, I saw this cranky little guy. It was sitting on a post that makes up the fence surrounding the dumpsters beside the building. I’ve never seen squirrels back there so I was surprised to see it making a spectacle of itself on top of this eight-foot post. Despite the people coming and going, it was sitting up there, making annoyed sounds. It wasn’t a momentary visit as I had time to go upstairs, change lenses, and come back down to take this photo.

It looks like a scrapper because of the chunk missing from his ear. I didn’t approach very closely because it was acting odd for a squirrel. For all I knew, it was rabid or something.