This is one of my personal favourite red squirrel images that I have made. I remember the day I captured this image as if it was yesterday but I was taken aback when I checked the image data and found that it dates back to 2010.

In some ways this was a bit of a watershed moment for me and taught me not to obsess about camera gear and in particular the sharpness on a lens.

The camera I used for this image was a Sony A900 with its 24mp sensor which at the time was huge for a DSLR. The lens used was a Minolta 300mm f4 which at the time was already coming up to 20 years old and had been designed for film rather than a high-resolution digital camera. Marketing people would have us believe that you need the latest and greatest offering to get a good image.

The lens had legendary status among Minolta shooters and for very good reason. It was adequately sharp and produced a very pleasing fall-off (bokeh) but there was a certain organic look to the images that it produced that modern lenses do not seem able to replicate.

Enough about the equipment. I watched as this red squirrel used the fallen birch tree to move across its territory. I liked the way that the silver birch contrasted with the more muted colours of the Caledonian Forest in winter and set my pop up hide in a spot that I found most appealing. As luck would have it a flurry of snow passed just as “tufty” decided to pause on the tree.