Crowded up here

Wide Wednesday: Close/Tight
Wild Wednesday

Two challenges with one entry - how about that!  To put this shot into context, had I reached out my arm, and the squirrel been prepared to stay where it was, I could have touched the squirrel.  The magpie is being much more cautious, but is pretty close even so.

To get this close to a magpie and a squirrel with a properly wide angled lens requires two things: patience and (more importantly) bait.  The bait was some scavanged nuts that I found to put on the stump, the patience I brought with me.  

A few minutes before taking this shot it had been properly raining and I was beginning to think that this idea just wasn't going to work.  The rain dripping off my waterproof onto my trousers was just convincing me that a nice shot of wet leaves would be sufficient for today's blip ;-)

I did actually have a moment when there was a wood pigeon on the stump with these two but the squirrel saw him off in seconds and I didn't manage to get a shot of that.  The magpie and the squirrel also had a brief tiff, and while I have a shot of the magpie in the air its not that grea,t (the squirrel is facing the wrong way and the shutter speed is too slow for the magpie to be properly sharp).  There's a lesson there somewhere!