Red Squirrel

This photo was taken in my backyard and I was in the house shooting through an open door. The squirrel was eating seeds kicked out of an overhead bird feeder and so was pretty relaxed, at least as relaxed as a red squirrel ever gets. To get the low angle shot, I was laying on the floor and using a telephoto lens. The original photo was cropped from horizontal to a vertical format, which makes it appear that I was closer than I really was. Still, I was probably within 2-3 meters.

Glad you enjoyed this spotting!

Ashish, These squirrels are also very noisy...and aggressive compared to our other native squirrel, the gray squirrel. Red squirrels are spot hoarders, meaning they build up a winter food supply all in one spot. Gray squirrels are scatter hoarders. They also store winter foods as well, but they scatter their caches over a wide area. As a result, red squirrels have to be ready to defend their cache and are irritable and touchy animals if you approach their cache. Gray squirrels pretty much ignore a person because a person (or another squirrel, bear, etc.) would never be able to find all of their caches. Thanks Textless and moralcoral for your kind words.

Sarah, I have no idea what she meant by that....grin, but I always laughed at it as well.

They are as "cute as buttons" as my Mom would say...grin.

They are not as common as the gray squirrels here in east central Minnesota, but we occasionally get them in our backyard. Despite the fact that they have been reported expanding their range into hardwood forests, I suspect that our area is still somewhat marginal habitat for these guys. As a result, we get a family group for a couple of years, then they disappear for a couple of years. Our city lot backs up to a large wooded area, where there is at least limited habitat for them. Most of the urban area, however, supports only gray squirrels.