Peek-A-Boo

Pol · #1 17-06-12

This is 'Humphrey', one of this year's brood. He came down from the Oak tree to play Peek-A-Boo'. I liked the way his eye fitted nicely between the blades of grass.

I'm finally able to hold my Pentax K20D again (yay!) and this shot is off the K20D + 300mm f/4. It was handheld, shot one evening last week after dull day, ISO 1250, f/5.6, 1/640.

Pol

John Perriment · #2 17-06-12

That's a lovely shot of the little fella.

OlyPaul · #3 17-06-12

Very nice shot Pol.

Pol · #4 18-06-12

Thanks for the kind comments.

I was on a bench against a wall for that shot, couldn't move back any further. I'm just ever so chuffed to be able to hold that particular camera + 300mm lens combination again.

Pol

Oli2k · #5 18-06-12

Very impressive

Pops · #6 18-06-12

Couldn't Have placed him any better

Ian · #7 18-06-12

Nice capture, Pol, but I say that through gritted teeth as the pesky critters are playing havoc with my bird feeding station!

Ian

Pol · #8 18-06-12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ian

Nice capture, Pol, but I say that through gritted teeth as the pesky critters are playing havoc with my bird feeding station!

Ian

I love all my vsiting 'skwirls' and we give most of them names. They're all descended from 'Kevin and Waynetta'. The Kevs are all great 'pole dancers'. The Waynettas are bossy Norah Batty types that bash the fellas off the feeders. Then there are the 'tarts' - forever pregnant. Yeah, squirrels are a joy to watch. Forever young, forever agile - just like me ... NOT

We don't mind in the slightest if the help themselves from the feeders. We have several black mesh peanut feeders that the squirrels use but don't damage. The occasional 'Waynetta' might fling it off the pole to scatter the peanuts over the ground but we haven't had one as naughty as that this year ... yet!

Have you ever tried using a dedicated 'nuttery' for the squirrels? We used to have two wooden nutteriea and the squirrels loved them, always used those instead of the bird feeders. We only got rid of them because all we ever saw were their tails and backside as their heads were always inside the hatch eating the nuts.

A nuttery can be great fun to watch as the squirrels lift the lid and get stuck into the nuts and sunflower seeds.

I'll g o off and see if I can find one like the ones we used and i'll post back if I can find them. They were approximately £12 iirc.

Watch this space.

Pol

Pol · #9 18-06-12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pol

A nuttery can be great fun to watch as the squirrels lift the lid and get stuck into the nuts and sunflower seeds.

I'll go off and see if I can find one like the ones we used and i'll post back if I can find them. They were approximately £12 iirc.

Watch this space.

Pol

I can't remeber exactly where we bought our squirrel feeders but I've managed to dig out a couple of links where they're selling the same sort of feeder that we had.

First link is HERE

And there's another link HERE

We nailed ours to the top of a spare fencepost and they liked to sit on the platform to eat the nuts. Some of the ground feeding birds hung about underneath to pick up any crumbs that fell.

The squirrels never bothered with the bird feeders when they had those 'nutteries'. Just be sure not to overfill them or the nuts at the bottom of the hopper can go mouldy if they aren't eaten within a few days, especially in wet weather after a Kevin left the hatch open.

Pol

Pol · #10 19-06-12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pol

I can't remeber exactly where we bought our squirrel feeders but I've managed to dig out a couple of links where they're selling the same sort of feeder that we had.

Pol

It's your lucky day, Ian.

Amazon have Gardman squirel feeders for £7.65.

They're the same as the ones we used.

Pol

Ian · #11 19-06-12

Thanks Pol. Actually, we only see squirrels very occasionally. It's just that they are destructive when they do appear. We used to have several mature sycamores and some large cherry trees in our garden but for various reasons they either got blown down or had to be removed . So our garden now has some mature evergreens (probably Leyland-ii) and a large weeping willow. I think the squirrels were more attracted to our garden when the larger deciduous trees used to be there.

Ian