Lazy Monday

The squirrels around here are getting a mite overconfident, I think. I'm used to them wandering around within feet of the house, eating all the peanuts I put out for the birds, and reacting with irritation when I walk towards them, and they have to interrupt their important business to take (usually minimal) evasive action. But when I walked into the wild garden this morning and spotted this one, stacking zeds at about human head height in one of the hazel trees, I really did feel as though the mickey was being taken. Especially as it then stayed put while I halved the distance between us, and merely blinked at me owlishly a few times before closing its eyes and going back to sleep. I wouldn't have thought this was an especially comfortable place for it to nap, personally, what with the amount of fat overhanging the branch, but apparently it was fine.

I'm starting to feel as though I'm getting the hang of the R5 now - this morning I even managed to set up the autofocus in the way I think will be most useful to me, without having to resort to the manual or to YouTube videos. I then spent a couple of hours walking around the village, photographing birds, and took quite a few photos I was very happy with. This evening's extra is a pair of starlings, which I snapped having what looks like a domestic dispute on a neighbour's roof; it's only had the most basic level of Lightroom processing, plus a crop for composition, and I'm delighted with the sharpness. We have so many starlings in the village at the moment that it's almost surprising we don't have our own murmuration, but they do spend quite a bit of time zooming around from one feeding site to another, and and in today's bright light the new camera was able to get me some (almost credible) flight shots as well.

Onwards and upwards!