Merry Christmas All

Here a photograph from my latest project. For the past few weeks I have been visiting a woodland site to photograph Red Squirrels. I would love to tell you where they are but given the sensitive nature of the site can’t at the moment. I have paid a couple of visits now spending up to 5 hours at time in my small portable hide but I have been rewarded with at least eight Red Squirrels visiting for nuts and seeds. On several occasions I have had the squirrels actually enter my hide and once one sat on my boot!

Unfortunately these wonderful little animals are under extreme threat in Northern Ireland due to a lack of suitable woodland, habitat fragmentation, competition from the larger and more adaptable Grey Squirrel which was introduced from north America. In recent years some of Northern Ireland’s Red Squirrels have contracted Squirrel Pox a disease which can devastate populations. For more information on the problems affecting Northern Irelands Red Squirrels why not visit the following website - http://www.doeni.gov.uk/niea/biodiversity/northern_ireland_squirrel_forum/northern-ireland-squirrel-forum-the-issues.htm. Which can be accessed from the links page above.

More of this series of images can be seen in a new gallery called Red Squirrel within the My Favourites gallery. You will notice I have added more images elsewhere in the site because the good people at Clikpic have upped my storage allowance. Over the coming weeks I will try and get more photographs from recent months on and some more news stories.