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Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Stalking A Fox Squirrel

This is the little guy that caused all the trouble yesterday. He doesn't look very hidden anymore, does he? This little fox squirrel was quietly eating a snack while I stood there taking his picture from a distant hiding place. Just as he was so very hard to see for you yesterday, he couldn't see me very well either.

A camera with a good zoom lense can be a blessing and a curse for an everyday adventurer. My first camera made it necessary for me to get very close to every animal I featured here. It became an exciting game for me to see how well I could sneak up on any creature I targeted. That can also be a problem sometimes. Animals run away, and some bigger animals get angry.

With my present camera and its powerful zoom I am able to sometimes keep my distance. I still have to get the right position, but the game isn't quite the same anymore. My skills as a photographer get better while my skills as an animal stalker begin to stagnate a little. I'm still having fun though because I always have to keep my eyes open to new prey.

This is the part where I reveal where the squirrel was hiding in the picture. It was hiding right out in the open, but I did a mean thing to all of you. The picture quality just wasn't good enough to find this squirrel, and I knew that very well. The real game was for you to guess. It was a fun test of your deductive reasoning skills. All of you did well, and some of you even won the game. Let's find out who the winners were.

The Winners
Who guessed correctly? Who gave the funniest guesses?
Poetic ShutterbugWiseacre
GinnymoAnn
MikeSparkle
LinVanillaSeven
John

I tried to get all the winners, but I'm not always perfect. Go visit their blogs. I know you haven't seen them all yet. These are each very good friends, and they can be your friends too if you give them the chance to know you.

Now we have a better look at where the squirrel was perched. He is right there to the right of that tree with the big hole in it. See him sitting on that fallen tree branch? Sharing these games gives you all a small sense of what it's like to be out there looking for animals like this. I do it every day, most of the time never knowing if there are any animals at all.

Most of the time I find nothing, but my searching eyes sometimes are able to spot a hidden little critter in the distant forest. My pictures are my prize for winning the game. My games are an effort to share my prize with you; to share the experience a little better. Then we can all find the animal, even if it might be so hidden that we can never see it at all. I hope you find this as fun as I do.


Nature Center Magazine - Emma is featuring a blog today for her Nature Site Of The Week that many of you know and love. Go and see for yourself who it is.

9 comments:

  1. Ratty, you and I must be up at the same time every night except it's 1AM on the Pacific coast and I'm not sure what time zone you are in. I have the worst time sleeping. I like checking in and finding you reporting on your adventures!!!

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  2. Oh that was fun and I really had no idea where he was. If I wouldn't have given the answer I did I would have guessed it was next to that stump.

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  3. Congratulations to the winners! I had no idea where it was. Always fun to look closely at a photo though.

    Bill:www.wildramblings.com

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  4. Hooray! SHeesh, that was a hard one!

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  5. I am a loser in your game, but you are a loser in the squirrel's game.

    Please curse me. You are a loser if you see none of them the time you are inside the forest.

    Ye ye ye ye....

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  6. Ratty, he is an adorable little guy. I know what you mean with the zoom lens. Because of it I can now capture some birds which before was impossible. Thanks, that was fun.

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  7. Wow..I was close...I thought he was closer to the black hole in that tree.

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  8. That was really tough - and there he was, hiding in plain sight!

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