Photographing Red Squirrels at Formby Point

Formby Point is owned by the National Trust and is at the far end of the Town of Formby, the reserve is free to National Trust Members. There are two things that you should really take into account when planning a visit to Formby Point the 1st is not to go anywhere near the place on Weekends or School Holidays and secondly try to avoid hot sunny days.  I thought that I'd managed both but to my dismay I arrived in the midst of several School visits and it started to get Sunny and hot. I was also advised on entry that this day was not a great day for Photographing Red Squirrels,  something not really what you want to hear when you have driven 100 miles to get there. 

 The Red Squirrels are supposed to be used to Humans but unlike their Grey counterparts they seem to have the ability to make themselves extremely scarce. When hunting for Red Squirrels patience and a lot of luck is needed. I'd spent a considerable amount of time scouring the point for Squirrels to no avail and then quite by accident I happened to bump into a local who was trying to tempt down a sunbathing Red Squirrel.

My kit for the day was a Canon Eos 7D mk1 and  a Sigma 100-300 MM F4 EX DG it's a great combo as the lens is light enough to be used hand held. Anyway it seemed to be my lucky day as this particular Squirrel skipped down the Scots Pine and started to pose . In fact if anything it was too close for the lens set up so I had to back away a bit.

I think that the encounter lasted about three minutes before the Squirrel then climbed back up the Scots Pine and dissappeared out of sight just as a gaggle of screaming School Children appeared from nowhere. After that I called it a day with the intention of returning on a cold Novembers day.