Monday, January 16, 2023

Mangy varmint...literally.


Most of the squirrels around here are plump and sleek. Lots of oaks in the neighborhood, plus uncounted bird feeders to raid. 

Some look a little worse for wear, though, like this patchy-lookin' fella.


It's not like he's lacking for food. These photos were snapped under an evergreen tree in front of a nearby apartment complex that's liberally festooned with bird feeders, and even a couple dishes on the ground that are usually piled with sunflower seeds and the like. There's a nearby park bench suggesting that some of the residents enjoy watching the critters.


These were shot with the EF 70-200mm f/4L IS on the Canon EOS 7D in aperture priority mode, at the full 200mm focal length (320mm equivalent on the Canon APS-C sensor), wide open at ISO 400 to try and keep shutter speeds pretty fast. He's in fairly deep shade under this tree with just some dapples of sun getting through, so even though the Image Stabilization on the lens will correct for a surprising amount of camera shake, squirrels are twitchy enough to get blurry at 1/250th and below.

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