With my feeder project done yesterday, all of the food gone, I sat panning my ground-level camera around the yard to see if I could find anything interesting to record…

Finally I found something — to the right there was a pair of squirrel kids playing around! You haven’t seen squirrel behavior until you’ve watched the kids play around. Jumping on each other, periscoping, asserting dominance… it’s a very, very interesting thing to see!

Squirrel fight!!

This particular “play session” lasted for 20 minutes! I’ve seen the kids play around before, but I’m not usually able to get such a good shot of them actually doing it… It’s usually a mad dash to get the tripod, grab the camera — “Tape! I need a tape!”, grab a tape, slam it in the camcorder and — “Oh @%*&! They left!” - but I was lucky this time!

 

 The Joys of Youth by Zach Glenwright, 7-15-06 [3:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

My obsession of late with my Backyard Feeder Project is to get shots of squirrels (and birds of course, if they decide to come and steal a nut or 2…) from a smaller-than-them perspective… I call them “up-shots” - shots where you seem to be looking up at them from below instead of from above or straight-on (think Meerkat Manor)… So how have I been trying to get these shots, you ask? I’ve been digging… a lot… Right in the middle of my yard, in plain site, is a hole that’s about 1′deep and getting deeper every day… unsightly, yes (but so is that part of the yard anyway…!) Here is a test shot of that whole endeavor, complete with a squirrel checking out the “weird gray thing” looking at it looks like so far… it’s not quite an “up-shot” yet… but it’s starting to look interesting!

Hey… who’s that??

…and yes, I’m wearing sandals while digging a hole… I’m an idiot…