I spend a good amount of time looking for unusual subjects to photograph, but I also love to photograph the everyday creatures that inhabit my day-to-day life. I spotted this Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) last Wednesday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. I cannot tell for sure what the squirrel had in its mouth, but he seemed to consider it a treasure.
I love the pose of the squirrel atop the broken-off tree—there is something dynamic about its somewhat precarious position and in fact the squirrel leap jumped to a nearby tree a few seconds after I snapped this photo. I also really like the curve of the squirrel’s tail that adds a kind of whimsical touch to the image.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
There’s nothing more fun than a squirrel acting squirrely!
Your comment brought a smile to my face. Watching the antics of squirrels can definitely be a lot of fun. 🙂
Nice capture. I like the squirrel’s tail!
Thanks, Suzette. That fuzzy tail tickles my fancy too. 🙂
Exactly!!
Nice Mike! An AFP! A Fun Photo!
Thanks, Reed. It’s so easy to get hyper-focused on “serious” photography and worry about things like camera settings and composition. Shots like this remind me of the joy of taking photos–I love your AFP acronym.
We’re currently on mountain above Cloudcroft NM (9000 elev) – late yesterday heard some plump-plumps – closer inspection revealed a squirrel chewing pine cones off to drop to ground – guessing to then be stuffed into some safe spot to get the squirrel through winter. We’d noticed a few days earlier a still-green pone cone on the ground … now it makes sense.
Squirrel are acrobatic creatures. We regularly see them hanging by their back legs off of our supposedly squirrel-proof bird feeder.
Cute capture!
Thanks, Ellen.
I love seeing these little guys – great photo, Mike.
Thanks, Dan. We have some black squirrels in our area, but so far I have not been able to capture a shot of a Smoky.
We are surrounded by them.
That’s a fun photo. Looks a bit like a pine cone in the squirrel’s mouth!
Thanks, Chris. I think you might be right about the mystery object in the squirrel’s mouth.
I’ve never seen you post an image of a squirrel before, which doesn’t mean you haven’t, but I missed it if you did. Although I sometimes imagine squirrels without all that fluff on their tails and they suddenly look more like rats, I think they are cute and smart and amazing athletes. Thanks for brightening the day with this image!
I think that I post an image of a squirrel only once every few years or so. My most memorable one, perhaps, was a couple of years ago when I spotted a white squirrel during one of my adventures (https://michaelqpowell.com/2019/05/23/white-squirrel/). 🙂
Wow! Now that’s a really unusual sighting!
Every time I return to that park, I check out that spot, but have not seen the white squirrel again.
I doubt it had a particularly long life, standing out like that.
I fear that you are correct, though it may have been resting there only momentarily.