Found in the garden

[Char]

I love squirrels and their antics but we don't seem to get them round here

He keeps all others out of the garden. We have a lot around here mainly red ones but we also have black ones which are a bit more timid than the red ones.

[Doug]

Sadly the only red squirrels in the uk are up in Scotland, grey ones have killed them all out down south.

[exile]

Not quite so Doug.

There are populations in Cumbria and so other northern English counties but they have been on the decline for sure.

The risk here in France is invasion from Italy where again the greys are expanding.

[Doug]

Not quite so Doug.

There are populations in Cumbria and so other northern English counties but they have been on the decline for sure.

The risk here in France is invasion from Italy where again the greys are expanding.

I sit corrected.

[Pathca]

Formby ,not that far from where I live, has a red squirrel population

[Blaze]

Grey squirrels were first brought to the UK at the end of the 19th century. They survive the cold and disease better than red squirrels, but are considered as an invasive species almost everywhere in the world.
[mention]exile[/mention] Italy had a plan to try to eradicate grey squirrels in the northwest of the country but animal activists blocked it so they may eventually come to France.

Reds are found in the north of England and, I believe on the Isle of Wight, and there are various wildlife groups trying to protect them

[Blaze]

A bit of luck this afternoon :

IMGP9431.JPG

[RobertArthur]

A bit of common sense yesterday afternoon. Temptation: flea market, a nice modern Nikon zoom lens. Closer inspection revealed work to do: broken ring, cut off tiny flat cables and a lot of rather fragile components. For half a minute I thought: mind over matter before coming to my senses. Creeping close to a dragonfly with a smartphone (macro function) will not be easy.....

[Blaze]

[mention]RobertArthur[/mention] A wise decision ...
I've given up creeping up on insects and I use a Pentax 300mm fixed lens. It's quite heavy so risky for hand-held and I didn't have my tripod handy.

[Spardo]

No photo (yet, I hope) but I was sitting here watching my bottom pond and bird bar through the glass doors this morning and was pleased to see a Robin and a Nuthatch, but then in the background for a nano second, re-focused on a flash of blue and orange from the overhanging bushes round the pond. Could it possibly be a Kingfisher? I promised that before I did anything else I would set the trail camera up and see what was captured. Picking it up I moved towards the door and, before I could open it, my eyes were drawn to the middle pond which is even more surrounded by vegetation. There it was, sitting on a branch and watching the antics of another largish bird in the water below. Definitely a Kingfisher and soon it dived down for its own splash. I hope he will back, but there are no fish here, so it is fingers crossed. The camera has been set up,

I have never seen one before in the garden but more than 30 years ago before we bought this place we would visit several times a year to the local riverside campsite. We learned to set the caravan so that its picture window faced up the river and gloried in the repeated runs over 100 metres or so directly towards us. So today is a special moment.