Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Curiosity

I was walking down the sidewalk the other day when a squirrel up ahead of me noticed me coming and bolted for safety. However instead of running into the front yard of the house to my right, she jumped for the tree growing in the devil's strip to my left.

The tree was not very big. My camera, however, was quite large (Canon EOS-1D Mark IV), and I managed to get it up in front of my face before she peeked out around the trunk to see if I was still there.


With the camera in front of my face, instead of being confronted by a pair of forward-facing predator eyes pointing right at her, there was just a blank black rectangle making clicking noises.

Curiosity overpowered caution, and the squirrel sidled toward me along a branch as I shuffled slowly forward with my EF 24-105mm f/4L IS zoomed all the way to its limit (136.5mm equivalent on the 1D's APS-H sensor) until I was practically up in her grille.


Finally her nerve broke and she scampered back down off the tree and across the street to the safety of a larger tree.

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