Looking Up

This morning there was a strange yellow globe hanging in the sky.

"An alien spaceship!" I thought, "They've finally arrived! I wonder if the government will just see them as another set of refugees to try and keep out of our borders..."

And then I realised it was the sun - so rarely seen over the past few months I'd almost forgotten it existed.

It wasn't raining either!

A walk in the woods was required. A chance to breathe fresh air, inhale woodland aromas and take my camera along in case anything caught my eye.

A shaft of sunlight through the trees caused old beech leaves to suddenly glow a deep warm orange.



And then, off in the distance, a red squirrel ran across the path - but it was gone before I could swing the camera into action. It has to be said that to date, all my squirrel photos have been out of focus and of their back legs as they disappear into the trees.

I wandered up to the place I'd last seen it and started looking into the undergrowth to see if there was any sign of it.

Nothing.

And then, something caused me to look up. There it was. I managed one clear shot, but my movement and the click of the camera spooked it. I fired off several more as it scampered across the branches, but it was too quick for me.

However, I was delighted to find this on my memory card as I downloaded my images when I got home.



It might not be to the standard professional wildlife photographers get, but it felt like a personal triumph to attain my very first non-blurry red squirrel photo.