Squirrel at the back door

It has rained all day and I have enjoyed being very lazy. I noticed the birds feeding rather desperately this morning in the driving rain. After a snack lunch I stood again near the back door and spotted one of the two squirrels who rampage around the back gardens here. It was running down the trellis and trying to access the feeders, which are meant to be squirrel proof and this time seemed to be effective.

But the birds who can access the sunflowers outside the door from the two feeders that hang off the wooden trellises, are very messy, particularly the goldfinches. They sit on the perches of the feeders and pick off the outer coatings of the seeds, although the shells have already been removed. The husks then fall to the stone slabs outside the door and are often joined by whole seeds that pop out of their mouths. I have actually caught this happening on camera with a startled goldfinch watching the seed fly though the air.

As a result there is still food for the squirrels and today there was no stopping him. Again I picked up the Canon 50D which Woodpeckers has been using recently and grabbed a few shots through the double-glazed glass. When I got back to my computer and looked at the images, I started to wonder why they were not as good as I had hoped. It has been a while since I used the camera which I used to love, but the lenses I use now with my new camera are much sharper (and much more expensive) and the camera just gets better results. I always record RAW images and it was only when I checked the images that I saw Helena must have set the camera to record smaller sized jpegs. I must test the camera again by using RAW files and see whether that accounts for the inferior images both today and on Friday when I blipped the Woodpecker.

I have also noticed that you can see the thin shape of the actual tail of the squirrel and how big the fur makes it look when its hair stands 'on end', rather like with a cat.