The Best Place to Photograph Red Squirrels in the UK
A few days ago, I drove up into the Yorkshire Dales to meet Paul Fowlie for a day at his Red Squirrel hides. We met in Hawes before driving out to his (literal) secret squirrel hide location.
First thing’s first, I never use bait to get my shots unless it’s at a specialist hide run by dedicated, knowledgable professionals that put animal welfare first. That’s exactly what this set-up is - You can tell how deeply Paul cares for these animals when you arrive and the solution implemented here is a long-term approach with conservation and animal welfare at its core. If you’re not already aware of the struggle red squirrels face in the UK, I’d encourage you to take a look at the below chart shared by The Wildlife Trusts, which shows the decline in Red Squirrel population in the UK between 1945 and 2010:
Red Squirrels desperately need all the help they can get and Paul’s set-up here is absolutely fantastic in helping to sustain the local population.
With all that said, on to the rest of the day!
The Hides:
There are three separate hides in close proximity of eachother and I was able to use all three during the day. This saw us start at the ‘Jumping Squirrels’ platform before heading up to the ‘Woodland Hide’ and then finally we finished up at the ‘Reflection Pool’.
Jumping Squirrels:
The platform is set up with a lot of flexibility for different focal lengths to be used. I started off with my 200-600 but the available light was extremely low so my ISO wanted to be north of 12,600 at a shutter speed capable of freezing the action. Suffice to say I wouldn’t have been able to get anything usable so I had to make some changes.
Fortunately I had packed my trusty 135mm 1.8 GM and I was able to get close enough to the platform to get shots at 1/1600th sec @ F1.8 and. ISO 2000… much better!
Within about 10 minutes the squirrels had arrived and I was lucky enough to get around 5 jumps. My A7R V can only shoot 10 frames per second, which sounds like a lot, but the squirrel passes through the plane of focus so quickly (especially at f1.8!) that there is a lot of luck involved! This is when the A1 ii or the A9 iii would have come into their own! I was still able to get a few good shots that looked sharp on the back of the camera, however, it wasn’t until I got home and checked on the laptop that I realised that the only one that was critcially sharp was the last one - The ‘let’s just wait five minutes and see if we can get one more’ shot image. I’m very glad we waited!
Woodland Hide
The woodland hide is around 100m up the hill from where the Jumping Platform is and it’s another well thought out and carefully crafted set up that you come to appreciate more as the day goes on.
Unfortunately, it was an extremely overcast day and the low mid-January sun meant it stayed a bit too dark for the 200-600 (this is this grounds to buy the 400mm 2.8, surely?). Credit where credit’s due, I did manage to get a usable shot of this Great Spotted Woodpecker way up in one of the trees, which I’ve been after for quite some time:
Again, the high resolution of the A7RV and close-proximity of the various perches meant I was able to get a lot of clean shots with my 135mm 1.8 GM. Here’s a few of my favourites from the Woodland Hide:
Reflection Pool
I rounded out the day at the reflection pool. This is a purpose-built, elevated pond that Paul has made specifically for capturing fantastic reflections of squirrels and birds. It’s essentially a very shallow pond up on stilts (at eye level from the hide) and bordered by rocks and moss to create a stunning setting. Here’s a few BTS shots, with one showing how close the squirrels are comfortable to approach the hide:
This is the bit I was most excited about, however, we’d just come off the back of a very cold spell with huge amounts of snow and temperatures regularly below zero. Unsurprisingly, the reflection pool was frozen over when I arrived, however, the two best areas for reflections had thawed out by the time we’d wrapped up at the Woodland Hide so all was not lost! If anything it was actually quite cool watching the squirrels walking across the ice in places!
Again I had a bash with the 200-600 but this time the light was the the main issue, it was that it was way too long! Paul’s advice is to use a 70-200 f2.8 here and I can see why, it would be perfect. Alas I don’t own a 70-200 so it was the 135mm GM to the rescue again! Below are a handful of my favourite shots from the reflection pool:
I had an amazing day here and I’ll definitely be returning in the spring! If you’d like to book to attend yourself, you can do so through Paul’s website here (no affiliation).