Red Squirrel

The red squirrel is an endearing creature, cautious and aware of its surroundings making it a challenge for many wildlife photographers.  Unfortunately the numbers of red squirrels had declined significantly  in Ireland due to the stronger non-native grey squirrel.  Thankfully in recent times growth in the pine marten population seems to have helped in addressing the balance somewhat and now there are more red squirrels appearing again in Ireland.  

This photo was taken at Irish Photography hides in Laoise where a number of red squirrels appear during the day.  The reflection pool at the hide provides the opportunity to get a photo of the squirrel as it explores the area around it, occasionally trying to get a drink.  Due to its positioning it is a bit of a challenge to get a shot of the full squirrel and the full reflection.  I was using a Canon R6 with a Canon 100-400mm lens plus a 1.4 extender (very kindly lent for the morning, thanks Philip) on a Manfrotto tripod with a gimbal head.  The settings for this shot were 1/400 sec. shutter and aperture of f/7.1 with auto ISO of 2000.  Due to the close proximity of the reflection pool I had zoomed into 264mm.

You can see more red squirrel photos on my SnappyTimes website at https://snappytimes.com/red-squirrel-ireland