Dolphins observing some squirrels

Mountain hares are my favourite animals to spend time with and take pictures of, which regular visitors to my site will know. (This is the first blog I’ve written in I don’t know how long that doesn’t have a picture of a mountain hare.) Some animals and birds come close, like red squirrels, puffins, gannets, and otters. Even if you only see them for a short time, red squirrels are fun to watch. There’s no better way to describe what happened. When you see this, you can’t help but laugh. The way they bounce when they run is one of my favourite things to watch, but it’s very hard to capture on camera. I have spent the most money watching and taking pictures of them. I have gone to both paid and free hides. In my blog, I wrote about where to see and photograph each of these. I’ve done some amazing things and have some beautiful pictures to show for it. Here are just a few of these photos. There are many more in my previous posts, on my website, and on my social media sites.

But I have wanted my own squirrels for a long time. When I first moved to the Highlands, the previous owner told me she sometimes saw squirrels in the garden, so I put up a squirrel feeder. But no squirrels came by, and the food started to go bad. I was shown a picture of a squirrel in a neighbor’s garden down the street, and I later found a dead squirrel nearby, proving that they were there. Every time I walked through the woods behind my house, I looked up to see if I could see an orange flash, but I never did. Then, one suddenly showed up on a trail camera. I had put up a bird feeder, and to my delight, a pine marten started coming to it. But I never thought I’d see a squirrel there because it didn’t look like the right kind of woods (deciduous). Due to the way the tree trunks were shaped, I quickly bought another squirrel feeder and, after a lot of trial and error, found a place to hang it. Soon after, there was a second squirrel on that trailcam video! At first, they had trouble with the feeder. It took a lot of head scratching and failed attempts to get to it before they figured it out. Even though the video I took with my camera was fun to watch, it wasn’t good enough to share with others (my newest camera the Browning Recon Force Edge has far better daytime images). But I’m going to show you these two because they made me laugh so hard (especially the 2nd of them). They have improved a lot!

Over the next few weeks, I looked for fallen branches and logs to use in the scene. It looks like the tree is an old birch tree. I wasn’t sure if the bark was still alive because it was completely covered in moss and lichen, but leaves have just started to grow in some places. It has a number of long, low branches that are covered in beautiful lichen. I think of it as an extension of my garden because it is only five minutes from my back door and down a path from my garden. This part of the woods is rarely seen because the only way to get there is through the gardens of a few people.