Forgot His Mittens

Comments appreciated....thanks.

Pretty! Ivana

You need to set out a muff for him. Haven't seen one in 50 years! The positioning of the paws make for a great shot and the title is super also.

Thanks Ivana and Jim, it had snowed and was tapering off, I never knew we had any of these guys until I put up a bird feeder. They can be very entertaining, but pretty frightened by humans so getting a close up is a challenge. I've developed a real soft spot for them though so I let them raid the feeder. :))

love squirrells and this is a lovely opportunistic shot. at least i hope this is opportunistic and that you have not sat out in the cold for hours just for him to get to the tree. the only suggestion i have is to crop it a little fine on the top.

Very nice capture of a squirrel! Like the title alot as I also think he looks like he`s a bit cold - very cute..:)

Very nice composition, great DOF, thanks again to give us a chance to see wonders. DL :O)

Thanks Puck and Inger. Puck, the only way I can get these is to already be there before they show up and stay very still, so definitely opportunistic in that regard. But if I'm freezeing it's because I was waiting on birds :)) Thanks for the crop suggestion.

Thanks Denis!

Oh so cute, Mary! I love it. Great capture!!!

Cute shot Mary Fran. Looks as cold there as it is here. Looking at single digit temps thorugh sometime next week. The squirrels around my house are all standing around a fire in a garbage can...

A fun shot! Squirrels are cute. Good pose, nice light!

great capture of a super pose what makes it stand out to me is the background or lack of it nice use of DOF.

Well he came down from the tree sneezing, clearly had caught a cold, and now he was missing his tissues.... http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=5535613 ... not technically good but the moment was priceless...for the squirrel lovers. :)) (Couldn't get it to attach here for some reason.)

A classic shot.

Excellent shot! Best regards, Catalin

Very sweet capture! Nice DOF and composition. I also like the wintery feel to it. Rgds Carole

What a wonderful capture of this beuty :-)

Great Squirrel capture with great pov,dof,colors,focus,blurred bg and his expression.Well Done.

Great shot, Mary FRan. It's a toss-up, re the crop. A minor bit off the top puts a bit more emphasis on the squirrel, but I think the overall balance might suffer a bit. Either way, a beautiful shot.

Thank you all very much, I think what I liked most about this was the DOF, I was about 10-12ft from him, hidden, using the 400mm lens. Only wish I had more snow coming down.

Mary Fran: I really like the crop and especially the detail of the branch. Looks like the focus was perfect and you are using my favourite lens. I don't know whether you have any latitude to trade some ISO speed for more shutter speed? Which might help to freeze his wiskers, although they are pretty sharp. One of the reasons I prefer my 5D to my 20D for this kind of shot is the better noise performance at high ISO. I don't think pixel size is an issue. Regards, Tony.

Thanks Tony, can't answer your question on the tradeoff as I live mostly in the green square :) I use the 30D as I get extra magnification out of the lens and can't get too close to these guys, they're really wild and sometimes just the sound of my front door (which is 75 yards from the tree with the feeder) will send them off in a hurry. I have been planning to try the 5D, just for comparison, haven't put this lens on it yet. I was hiding at about 16-max 20 ft for this one. I laugh, I need to be there before they show up, they visit about 2 or 3 times a day, and it looks like a procession coming up out of the woods. I think there are 5, one big enough to stuff for Thanksgiving. Even my neighbor, several 100 yds down the road asked me if I had seen "the BIG grey squirrel', obviously he's double dipping over there too!