hunting squirrels, I got a bird

[pakodominguez]

Armed with my (rented) A900 I went to Union Square during my lunch time, looking for squirrels for Don, but haven't find any friendly one. So I shoot this:
A900 + 35~200Xi 1/30sec f6.3 @200mm
In camera JPG

100% crop

RAW proceced with ACR

100% crop


yeah, It's a little blured, but get a pic @200mm 1/30sec handhelded that looks better!

Regards

[bossel]

UUmmppfff - I am sure this is below your abilities!!

[pakodominguez]

With Sonolta "style"

:-p
BTW: look at that bokeh!

[pakodominguez]

UUmmppfff - I am sure this is below your abilities!!

what?
hunting squirels or having sharp images 1/30 sec @200mm?

gotta go work!

[jbtaylor]

The bird shot is fantastic. I especially like the threads of the rope.

[KevinBarrett]

I really like your first shot Pako! The colors are splendid and the composition is very delicate and clever. I like how two different branches take your eye right to the bird. Sharpness be damned, its only visible at 100%, and a little web-sharpening will fix that up nicely! The bokeh ain't bad either!

[David Kilpatrick]

Don, I was about to post - 'not more f**king squirels'!

But I realised you had never posted any shots of squirrel porn, and if I said this, there was a serious risk you would do so. I now realise that in all the time I've been photographing animals and birds, including all my chickens which once had a cockerel, I have never once shot any pix of their marital relationships (except a couple of bugs here and there). Really stupid of me, as stock images for textbooks are consistent sellers, and this must surely be a required subject.

Sadly, a very handsome fox arrived in our garden three days ago. He (we assume) has killed five of our nine chickens, before we were able to imprison them in safe runs. I saved one of them, injured but recovering. The fox ran away, but turned and came back as I stood next to what I thought was a dead bird. He put his paws on a wall and stood upright and stared at me. I went back to the house (just a few yards, this was after midnight) to get a torch and call Shirley. The fox followed me. He came within about 20 feet and faced me as I turned back to go out. My 22 air rifle had no pellets and anyway, it would be almost useless to despatch a fox. The fox started to come towards me, so I shooed it away, and it left. I think if I had not done anything, it would have come to the door. Three chickens found in the garden, frozen two days ago, thawing now - fox been back (more eaten from one bird). He comes around 4-5am so I do not really want to get up and try to use the pellets a friend gave me. Fox will get reported to environmental health on Monday. Leaving the dead chickens, as he would come back to his 'larder' for more and they may be able to poison them, but worried about other wildlife. He has probably already had the squirrels, maybe some pigeons. In the middle of a town, a fox as unafraid as this is a threat to cats and even to small dogs.

No, I didn't have the camera on me...

David

[rogprov]

Very sorry David to read your sad tale but please don't try shooting a fox with an air rifle you'll not make a clean kill and only injure it. Poison bait is a big no also ... what you going to use and if you did what else (as you did say) will get killed? I've kept chickens (lots) and, despite their presence in the area, never ever lost any to a fox. The onus is on the chicken owner to keep them safe. Killing a fox never will work for long because another will simply take over the vacant territory.


Changing the subject ... I didn't know Don liked squirrels

Here's one from a couple of days ago ... looking in the kitchen window and taken through the glass.

[David Kilpatrick]

Very sorry David to read your sad tale but please don't try shooting a fox with an air rifle you'll not make a clean kill and only injure it. Poison bait is a big no also ... what you going to use and if you did what else (as you did say) will get killed? I've kept chickens (lots) and, despite their presence in the area, never ever lost any to a fox. The onus is on the chicken owner to keep them safe. Killing a fox never will work for long because another will simply take over the vacant territory.

Yes, the only way I would have considered it was at point-blank range - which might have been possible, given the fox's behaviour. I've kept chickens here in a walled garden for fifteen years and we have never had a fox within Kelso town. Now the poor things remaining are stuck in a cage run by day and locked in at night, the worst possible situation in winter. We do have a run with high walls and fences, but it get little sun at this time of year, it is impossible to see into it and it seems the fox is able to get over almost anything. It despatched one chicken on top of a 2.5m wall where it was roosting, in the middle of the garden - I found the feathers after getting up there with a ladder to check. Fortunately our most beautiful tiny bantam, a miniature Dutch which came to us by being found loose in a neighbour's garden two years ago, is OK. This little bird can fly well enough, and occasionally takes off for a week or two before returning to the garden. She is no bigger than a pigeon.

Still, I've had 2 years of completely free range chickens throughout the entire garden, and they don't make it very useful as a garden - nor do we end up getting many eggs, as they are very clever at finding places to lay them. The answer may be to add another metre of wire net above the 2m plus fences, but my neighbours may not appreciate that. I think instead we will build a larger run in the spring, in sight of the house and keep only bantams. We both like to be able to see the birds. There is such a huge difference in the quality of eggs from truly free chickens and those just kept in a run with grass. Ours have been able to pick between possibly hundreds of plant species when feeding. We buy 'organic free range eggs' at the moment and they are tasteless things which don't even colour a batter mix yellow.

The fox will be reported to pest control on Monday. There are many domestic cats around here and a large fox resident in the town centre is not a good thing.

David

[pakodominguez]

Actually, I did get a squirrel...

100% crop

:-p