I took the opportunity today of doing something I haven’t done before.  I went down to Brownsea Islan to watch and photograph Red Squirrels.  Autumn is firmly here and with it misty mornings, trees turning to russet and nuts galore.  Perfect for squirrels.  

The challenge is, in the UK, our native Red Squirrel has been pretty much out competed by the introduced and larger American Grey Squirrel.  Greys are ubiquitous in across most of England and Wales with reds confined to forests in the far north of the country and Scotland.  We do have a couple of enclaves in the south.  Brownsea Island and the Isle of Wight.  Being islands, the greys didn’t make it there.  

Brownsea Island is a small wooded island in the middle of Poole harbour on the south coast.  It’s a small treasure of an island, the site of the first camp of the Scouting movement and now maintained by our National Trust. 

There wasn’t a lot of light about but watching these smaller native squirrels gathering and burying sweet chestnuts for most of the day was rewarding.  I got a handful of decent images - my first of these squirrels.  It’s a long time since I photographed greys and we have about half a dozen in our garden all year - they have been equally busy gathering beech mast.  There are some more photos in this gallery. 

Possibly the biggest surprise today was seeing Avocets.  Probably the most elegant wader in its black and white plumage and unique long upturned bill.  I think this was the first time since my childhood.  There was a group of about 12 foraging in the shallows of the marsh pools on the north of the island near the public hide and there were a good deal more on the far side of the pool.  

I was quite chuffed with this photo as it was at the limits of being practical.  I had to use IS03200 with the lens (200-500mm at 250mm) wide open at f/5.6 and a shutter speed of just 1/100 handheld.  The lens’ Vibration Reduction definitely helped but you have to catch the subject perfectly static and they don’t do static much.  They will freeze for a moment (less than about 1/5s given that I got 2 frames of this) but they move pretty fast the rest of the time.