This was well worth the 4am start
Every now and again, I can picture an image in my head of an animal in a specific location that I would like to try and capture, like when I went to the Isle of Mull, the image I knew I wanted was an otter looking right at me, down amongst the sea weed and rocks or when I went out to photograph a bird in the gorse bushes the other week. One of these pictures I have had in my head for a while, is an image of a red squirrel in the bluebells, which I set out to get at the end of April.
I have had the pleasure of photographing red squirrels in both Scotland and England, but not yet Wales. With the peak of the bluebell season here in Wales coming at the end of April/beginning of May, and having a lot of other commitments this month, I knew I only had a brief window in which to accomplish my goal.
I had been messaging with Adam Thomas on Instagram, who has photographed the red squirrels that reside on Anglesey a lot, and has some absolutely STUNNING images of them. He was super helpful, answering my questions and so when the day came to go, I had somewhat of a plan together.
I knew I wanted to have an overcast day, as the light in the woodland would be softer, with no harsh sunlight illuminating the greens of the new spring growth, and I also wanted to go on a week day, as it would be much quieter. Having checked the weather conditions for the week, it gave me one day, where all my prerequisites were all checked. I messaged my friend Jem the day before to see if she’d be free to come with, as it would only be a half day, as I had no one to look after Skylar.
The squirrels are up early, so we’d need to be also if we were going to get the plan to work. Anglesey is a 2 hour drive for me, and so I was up at 4am, to be ready to leave at 5am. Jem met me in the lay-by by my house, and we set off on our early morning adventure. It was her first time photographing red squirrels on Anglesey as well, so we were both very excited.
We arrived at the car park just after 7, grabbed our gear and headed off into the woods. It was a magical little walk through the trees, and there were bluebells in abundance. We didn’t have to walk too far, to find a spot that we thought would work for us. There was a plastic pot in one of the stumps nearby, a sign that the squirrels were fed here by others, so that was encouraging to see that we should be in the right spot. I scattered my hazelnuts around the stumps and logs, in the hopes that the squirrels would know where to go.
I brought all my lenses with me, as I wasn’t sure which one I would want, as it would all be dependent on where the squirrels would be. Adam had suggested that the 70-200 would be enough, so I started out with that one. It is also my favouritest lens of all time, and at f2.8 was also my fastest, so was great for the low light in the wood but would also help my squirrel to pop out of the image due to the shallow depth of field.
It was then onto the waiting game, we had done our part, it was now down to the squirrels hearing the call of the hazelnut, and turning up.
I spotted our first squirrel about half and hour into our waiting, just sat in a birch tree, a few meters away from us, but in the next section of wood. This is where the excitement really started to build. While these squirrels, and all the wildlife here, where very used to people, these would be my first reds, that I would actually have gone out to find myself.
The squirrel was then joined by a further 3 squirrels which was a joy to see, they were all in their summer coats and looking fabulous (the ones I had previously photographed, were in winter coats or moulting). They were staying high up in the trees above us, but eventually, one started to come down and get in close.
This first encounter was just magical, the squirrel came really close to us, and I managed to get some (in my opinion) STUNNING images of her as she came in and took one of the hazelnuts we’d placed out.
At this point the squirrels were all around us, and we were having an amazing experience with them, and were just getting into the swing of things, as some walkers went past with their dog, and the squirrels disappeared.
The fact that this was a well used woodland, was a blessing and a bit of a curse (as you will find out later), as the squirrels were very used to people, and were only really cautious of dogs going by, so it wasn’t long before they were coming back in. While waiting for the squirrels to come back, I did spot a mouse right next to where we were sitting, but unfortunately, I had managed to set my camera to human eye AF, so missed it completely.
With the squirrels coming back in, the real magic started to happen, with one of the females coming in amongst the dense bluebells, right next to us. The density of the bluebells was also a bit of a curse, as trying to get a clear shot though them proved to be a bit difficult. However, I did manage to get a few clear(ish) images that I am over the moon with.
The squirrel then started to settle in and moved towards the log where it happily munched on some hazelnuts, allowing us to get some more images of her. Another squirrel had also started to come in down here, but I was unable to frame them both up together.
As they were more settled now, I decided to swap onto my 200-600 mm lens, so I could get some more close up images of them.
It was at this point, that some other people turned up, and having had a quick chat and saying yes to having them join us, to take some images where we were, they moved about 5 meters away and started to put their own nuts out in a different section of the wood. This was highly frustrating given the time we had put into get the squirrels to come into where we were.
It did get a bit quieter with the squirrels being high up in the trees, and with the other people putting their own nuts out. As we had been in early and got a lot of keeper images, we decided to move on to explore a bit more of the woodland as we had about an hour left before having to head home.
We found a spot a bit further down in the woods and sat there for a while, but I think that due to the woods getting busier now with more dog walkers (it was now after 10 am), and the spot we’d chosen having a path on both sides of it, the few squirrels we did see, were high up in the trees, so after a while, we decided it was time to head back to the car. We had hoped to see some more squirrels on the way back, so kept our cameras at the ready, but unfortunately, the squirrels we’d seen earlier had moved on.
We had an amazing time with the squirrels on Anglesey this morning, fulfilling my dream image, and having the most magical time with the squirrels amongst this beautiful woodland. I will definitely be heading back to photograph these guys again in the autumn amongst the beautiful autumnal colours, and probably next spring as well to see if we can create any more magic in the bluebells.