Of Rodents and Dogs and Things

I'm sure some of you are mystified at the concept of actually feeding squirrels and chipmunks.  Frankly, the whole idea seemed a little bizarre to me, too.  Until I tried photographing the rodents, and lemme tell ya, those chipmunks are fast little devils.  And easily spooked, too.  Squirrels will run off when I approach, but they squawk at me; the chipmunks are like subatomic particles - they just vanish.  So, of course, photographing chipmunks has become my new challenge.

Sneaky little devils!

At least the squirrels tend to stay put more.  And they're bigger, so they are easier to 'catch'.

And for those of you who are wondering, yes, the girls do bark at the rodents - the chipmunks teleport to locations unknown, while the squirrels run up nearby trees and shout HBO words back at the girls.  It's actually sort of entertaining.

The birds are rather happy that the squirrels have been lured to the backyard.

And the girls are happy as long as the tennis balls are flying!

And a quick experiment in depth-of-field.  This is the 55-200mm lens at f/4.0, 55mm.

Day 208/365.