Squirrel Surprise

After a game in Parteen I said I would drive over the road to check out the great spotted woodpeckers that frequented an area over there. I had brought my camera with me and was hoping to get some nice shots. I got out of the car at the spot which was on a bridge looking over this beautiful river valley with trees on the banks either side overlooking the river. 25 minutes had passed and there was still no sign of the woodpeckers and I was starting to lose hope when at the corner of my eye I spotted some movement. Woodpecker? No but instead it was this beautiful Red Squirrel running across the road. I remained still and watched on and next thing the Squirrel hopped onto the wall of the bridge and started running towards me. It got extremely close which allowed me to get some amazing close-up photos before it eventually clocked me and proceeded to turn quickly and run back off the wall and down the valley towards the riverbed.

                   

                  Squirrel checking me out on the bridge

I messed up some of my shots but I can't complain as I still got my best Squirrel shots to date and only a few minutes later to top it off I looked to my side to see a great spotted woodpecker fly onto the top of the telephone pole beside me. The light was bad as I was looking into the sun and it proceeded to fly into the dense foliage of the canopy of trees overlooking the river so I couldn't manage any great photos but I still got great views of a new species for me which brings my Irish species list up to 136 and one step closer to the 150 I'm hoping to get by the end of the year. The squirrel activity continued for the next 15 minutes as I waited hoping the Woodpecker would show its face again which apart from one or 2 extremely brief distant sightings that I'm not even 100% sure were woodpeckers it didnt but i got great views of another Squirrel as it hopped along the trees on the left bank of the river and managed some decent shots too. Not a bad day out!

Great Spotted Woodpecker on telephone pole