I could have called this image “April Fools” as it was taken on 1st April a few years back.

You can see from this image that the red squirrel holds onto its impressive ear tufts into early spring.

These close-up images do not usually appeal to me but on this occasion, I found these ears irresistible.

A small word about the lens I used which is the reasonably priced (for a wildlife lens at least) Sigma 150-600mm Contemporary. Why the cheaper Contemporary you might ask. The answer is simple, it is lighter and less expensive than the sport with very similar image quality. Why a zoom lens? simply I would not have been able to capture this image with a longer prime and it was the flexibility of a zoom that let me fit the squirrel into the frame. 

I would encourage any budding wildlife photographer to look beyon the kit and focus on capturing images that make you happy. You take the photograph not the kit!