It was an early start today as I was meeting Paul Fowlie a fellow wildlife photographer in Hawes, Wensleydale, to film Red Squirrels for the day.

I left home at 6.30am on a cold and frosty morning, the outside temperature was -2C which I don’t really mind, it was daylight and the weather forecast for the day was for a dry sunny day. After a steady drive up the A1 motorway, I arrived in Hawes a few minutes before 8.00am. Paul arrived a few minutes later and after exchanging pleasantries we set of in our cars further up the dale along the B6255 before branching off onto a track into the heart of Snaizeholme some seven miles from Hawes.

It is steady five-minute walk from the car, down the side of a valley and into the woodland. The ground underfoot was extremely wet and slippery. March had been a very wet month in Wensleydale and much of North Yorkshire, records have shown that it was the wettest March since 1981. After a few minutes we were able to settle down in the hide.

Looking back through my diary it was April 2021 since I last visited and prior to that it was December 2017 with Simon Phillpotts. Needless to say, we have had three years of Covid Pandemic in between, otherwise I would probably had had a few more visits.

I remember from my previous visits how cold, damp and wet it can be up here, so I came well prepared with all my winter gear including my wellies! Although the sun had started to shine it was still quite chilly in the confines of the hide which is protected from the sunlight by the woodland.

As I was setting up my gear the red squirrels were being very inquisitive outside the hide, along with a variety of bird life including Pheasant, Robin, Chaffinch, Greater Spotted Woodpecker Great and Blue Tits. I was using two Canon cameras today, one with a 100 – 400mm lens, the other with a 500mm lens with a 1.4 converter fitted, so I had most scenarios covered, the problem was not knowing where the squirrels were going to appear from which determined which camera I should hand hold, that said the 500mm lens was too heavy to carry, so I had that secured to a portable fitting screwed to the Gimble head, which enabled me to quickly lift it from one viewing window to the other, depending where the subject was. The 100 – 400 lens was much lighter and versatile than the longer lens.

Paul had mentioned earlier that a Greater Spotted woodpecker was nesting in one of the trees round the back of the hide and sure enough, throughout the morning I could hear it drumming on one of the trees in front of the hide, at that it dropped down from the tree and started pecking at the top of the ‘public footpath’ signpost, it turned out to be a regular visitor for most of the morning.

The Red Squirrels were round and about all the time often having three or four around the hide at any one time. Once you had got used to their mannerisms and movements it made them slightly easier to photograph. As soon as they found some food they would stop and eat it on the spot after which they would scamper off into the distance, before returning a few minutes later. Being much smaller than the Grey Squirrels they are far more agile and can run up and down a tree as fast as they can along the woodland floor.

The sunlight, although very pleasant and warming,  made photographing the squirrels tricky at times, dependant on where they appeared next, I had the hide to myself today so was able to film out of two sides of the hide, be it the front or the right hand side window, the sun was shining in from the left and I was constantly having to adjust my ISO and aperture settings, though I did manage to get some nice back lit images which I was pleased about.

As well as the squirrels, I was pleasantly surprised with the birdlife around the hide, Chaffinch, Robins and a pair of Pheasants were with me all day, other visitors were the Greater Spotted Woodpecker, Coal Tit, Great Tit and Blue Tits.

It was great to be back in the hide and hopefully not too long before I can return again.