Super Squirrels…

Okay so let’s get one thing clear – these aren’t actually flying squirrels, they’re red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris). More specifically, they’re Scottish red squirrels. Most of my previous attempts to photograph these wonderfully iconic creatures have been fruitless, which makes me even happier with the resulting pictures from a recent trip to the Highlands.

If I’m honest, while planning this trip to Scotland I was visualising and hoping for snow…and lots of it. Yet, while neither myself nor fellow South African photographer Ben Cranke came away with the wintery images that we had prepared for (and I always try to plan my shots before a shoot), the show that the squirrels put on and the opportunities that we had to capture their antics were beyond our expectations.

Ben and I spent two days working a set-up in Glenfeshie (check out the Northshots website for info) in the Cairngorms National Park, moving between a hide by a drinking pool and a hide positioned on the edge of the forest. We managed to learn the habits of the squirrels pretty quickly and finally get the best jumping, drinking and feeding shots that the lighting conditions would allow. While we may have arrived in the middle of a strange mid-winter heatwave, the sun was still low in the sky and barely broke above the treeline, making me pretty glad I had the f2.8 capacity of my Canon 400mm and 70-200mm lenses. I was also quietly happy to see Ben struggling to autofocus in the low light with his much vaunted Nikon D4* (*Disclaimer: this may not have happened).

It’s neither a secret nor is it new news that red squirrels in the UK have been squeezed out of their natural range by non-native grey squirrels. Grey squirrels cause such damage to the UK’s native fauna and flora that they are listed in the IUCN international list of 100 most impactful invasive non-native species. They are not only larger and out-compete the native reds for resources but they also carry the parapox virus. While greys can carry the virus without being affected, reds are highly susceptible to it. Research shows that in areas where both species occur and where the virus is present, greys can displace the reds up to 20 times faster. This makes protecting red squirrel strongholds both more important and more difficult.

Having been won over by Glenfeshie’s super squirrels, we left the comfort of the hides behind and spent two days on the surrounding snow-capped mountains searching for ptarmigan. Check back soon to see how we got on looking for white birds in a white landscape in horizontal blizzards.

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Northern headaches

What a week. Having planned to shoot at what I thought to be fail-safe locations across the north of England over the course of a week, grim weather and elusive animals contributed to a paltry return of exactly sixty photographs. I saw almost everything that I hoped to photograph, although mostly through a veil of drizzle and at a distance even the best telephoto lenses would struggle to reach.

Lancashire’s Red squirrels were the first to elude my shutter finger and I had to admit defeat and retire to the shelter of a cafe for the afternoon for some emails and editing. I didn’t think peregrine falcons would give me as much of a run around the next day, especially knowing that Yorkshire’s Malham pair would still have their now airbourne chicks hanging around. As I made my way up to the cove I saw one of the parents make a mid-air manoeuvre to pass food to the chicks, after which all three promptly disappeared off into the distance. After five cold hours of sitting and hoping in gradually lessening light and worsening weather, I again had to begrudgingly admit defeat.

The weather never improved enough for me to justify going after in-flight peregrine shots again and so I concentrated the rest of my time in the Vale of York seeking out adders and the threatened water vole. Having searched heathland for some hours I was thrilled to find a male adder basking in the sun. The problem is, by the time I found him he had obviously warmed sufficiently to be able to slink off into thick gorse. Still, it’s only the second time I’ve ever managed to get any shots of this beautiful and declining species.

Photographing the usually delightful and previously obliging water vole proved as irritating as listening to a tape-loop of the Beatles’ Revolution 9. A local researcher friend assured me that she had heard the distinctive ‘plop’ of vole into water and seen them out foraging along the river in the weeks previously. It’s hard to tell how hard the harsh winter hit these small mammals but based on my luckless daily quests to find and photograph them, I’d say pretty hard. After a few days of sitting camouflaged in the undergrowth seeing nothing but nettles and smelling nothing but himalayan balsam, I decided enough was enough and headed home content in the thought that a week in some of the UK’s best countryside in the company of some of its rarest animals qualifies as a good week for some. And hey, if everything was tethered or caged to make it easier for photographers then I’d fall out of love with my job rather quickly. Yes, as a career it has to be viable but the unpredictability, the challenge and the chase make it worth every slow, cold, sodden, nettle-stung hour on a riverbank.

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