With the temperature hovering just above freezing I ventured North this morning on my long-awaited visit to Wensleydale to film the Red Squirrels. Looking through my diary recently my last visit was almost two years ago, and I can remember that visit quite vividly, where has that time gone. I arrived at the main car park in Hawes at around 8.25am to rendezvous with Paul Fowlie a professional wildlife photographer who has a large woodland just north of the village, after exchanging pleasantries and meeting another wildlife photographer Philip who had driven up from Swansea to join us for the day, we set off for the  ten-minute drive from the main car park along a narrow single track road up the dale to reach our filming destination. The surrounding fells were covered in a dusting of snow which had fallen overnight.  On leaving the cars we made our way on foot, down the hillside to the woodland hide, the hard overnight frost made the walking a little easier though it was still quite slippery underfoot compounded by the fact I had a big rucksack on my back with all my camera gear in. After a briefing from Paul who set out a plan for the day, I unpacked my camera a EOS Canon 1DX, which I have had for several years now, mounted it onto the tripod, attached the 500mm lens to the camera, switched it on and watched all the lights flicker to red to tell me everything was working fine, set the aperture and focal length etc ready to take some shots of Red Squirrels jumping between the branches.  Within a few minutes we had several Red Squirrels running around our feet and amongst the trees. It was just a question of time till the squirrels got used to us and felt comfortable with our company. As the first Squirrel appeared amongst the branches ready to jump, my camera decided it was not going to work, the lights went out and no matter which buttons I pressed I got no response, I had a spare battery in my rucksack which I put into the defunct camera body but to no effect. Oh dear. Fortunately, on days like today I always carry two cameras with me, so it was a quick change over to my Canon EOS 1DX mk 2, fortunately that bounced into life as soon as I switched it on and it performed well throughout the day, only changing the battery once. It is quite a challenge to photograph Squirrels in mid-flight, determining where they are going to jump from and to. Paul had already prepared a good jumping site so having manually set the camera aperture and speed to the appropriate settings, due to the poor light and surroundings light this morning I had the camera set to ISO 4000, (which is usually far too high)  aperture at F5.6 and a shutter speed of 1600 of a sec, I had the shutter set to High Speed continuous, so it was just a waiting game till the Squirrels decided to run between our branches, though tempting them with some Hazel nuts soon increased more interest.

The weather at this stage was a tad on the chilly side, the temperature was hovering around 0c, with a wind chill of -5c, it felt quite Artic at times with intermittent snow flurries. After a good first session of jumping Squirrels we moved over to filming them running along the lichen and moss-covered stone walls which are plentiful in the woodland and the whole of the dales come to that. Having spent a lot of time watching the squirrels, it never ceases to amaze me how quickly they can cut open the shell of a hazel nut and devour the nut inside, on average it was taking them between 45 seconds to a minute. Holding the nut in its front paws it rotates the nut whilst its sharp teeth act as a tin opener, the shell drops of and the nut is consumed, occasionally they do take the entire nut in their mouth and stash it not far away. After an hour of being in the open the cold was beginning to bite a bit, so we headed for the relative comfort of the Woodland hide close by for the remainder of the morning. Not only did we have Red Squirrels visit us, but several Cock and Hen Pheasants were not far away, as were male and female Chaffinches, Blue Tits, Great Tits and Greater Spotted Woodpecker. I could also hear the delicate call of the Goldcrest that was close by and kept getting tantalising glances of.

After lunch, we left the comfort and spaciousness of the ‘Woodland hide’ and headed over to the compact ‘Reflective pool hide’ for the rest of the afternoon, unfortunately, due to the cold weather the water was frozen over, which prevented us from getting any good reflection pictures, none the less we were able to get some beautiful photographs of the Squirrels as they came to the water’s edge searching for food, and skating across the ice, occasionally swimming in part of the pool which was not frozen over. At one point we had four Squirrels at the water’s edge at the same time, along with at least six Chaffinch, several Coal Tits and Great Tits, all feeding amongst the rocks and lichen. Occasionally the Pheasants came close by but did not venture close to the water’s edge. An additional bonus for us this afternoon, was that to our left was a stone wall which ran across the woodland, and running along the wall and through the grass below was an ermine-coloured Stoat, we must have watched it at least eight times whilst we were sat in the hide. We both commented on how brazen the Squirrels and Pheasants were in its presence. As the afternoon drew on, it became quite cold, and our camera batteries were flashing red, so we decided to call it a day. After packing our gear away and checking we hadn’t left anything behind we closed the hide down, shutting the wooden window and locking the door before we made our way back to our cars. It was quite a steep and slippery, muddy walk from the hide up the grassy bank and sloping hillside, it certainly got my heart and lungs pumping and was pleased to get a cup of tea once we reached our cars. After exchanging pleasantries and chatting about our day,  I headed back along the narrow single-track road, admiring the snow-capped fells to the right whilst keeping an eye on the road ahead. Within a few minutes I was back in the bustling town of Hawes.