Just a wee grey

 

I had a lovely trip to the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin with my Liz one of my friends from DCC.  And, typical of me, the images I decided to show case were fauna rather than flora!!!  

This cute grey squirrel caught my eye and I took some time away from the flowers taking shots if it and it's buddies.  As you can see from the composition, for this shot I placed my camera at ground level and have the grass blurred in the foreground as I feel it gives an interesting perspective.  It is like getting into it's world rather than imposing on it's world.  Settings wise I had an open aperture of f/8 (using my old 100-400 EF lens with a 1.4 extender and an adapter).  I favour this old EF lens over my 100-500 RF lens when in gardens because it has a closer minimum focus distance.  I used my usual animal go to shutter speed of 1/1000 sec even though I needed an ISO of 6400.  

While I get great headspace from photographing creatures, this experience was a bit tainted as there were so many humans feeding the squirrels and humanising them.  I was very conscious that the botanic gardens had previously culled grey squirrels as they viewed them a danger to the public as they were no longer weary of humans but see them as a source of treats.  I have posted a panel of photos on Snappy Times and have documented the bitter sweet experience, you can view the photos and read the piece here.  Please take the time to get a better understanding of how man has impacted on these guys.