Red Squirrel

I spent today/yesterday on Brownsea Island with the camera club, guided around by a camera club member who volunteers there and who was spending a few days on the island with his wife in a lovely cottage. It was cloudier and cooler but much less energy sapping than it has been. The hope was that we would see and photograph red squirrels. There are few places where you can see red squirrels in the UK but Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour is one of them - a safe haven for them away from grey squirrels! We were not disappointed! Having arrived on the first boat, we headed into the woodland and were almost immediately greeted by a pair of red squirrels who posed and entertained us for the next half hour or so, sometimes coming very close - too close to photograph! Amazing! Even the volunteer said he'd never seen anything like it! It was a great chance for my new camera to show what it could do what with the shade of the trees and all the darting about. I was really pleased with the results - not all perfect, of course, but a much higher success rate than I would have got with my D5300. I'm sure most of the less than wonderful shots were the fault of the one behind the camera, trying to learn how to get the best from the new camera! I even had some moderate success photographing terns, which move so incredibly quickly! (see unedited extra).

The afternoon was rounded off beautifully with a cream tea at the cottage, provided by the volunteer's wife - wonderful!


For those who are interested in how the new D7500 is performing, check out the high ISO and lack of noise! My second extra is even more remarkable - taken in a very dark area of a church, without flash, then cropped to straighten but otherwise unedited, it has an ISO of 12800!!!


Thank you so much for all the great comments, stars and heart for yesterday's blip - most kind!


Ann :))