080: The Squirrel Branch

Standing with my tripod and zoom lens by a gate in some local woods, I took a few decent images of birds today: A chaffinch, some great tits and a blue tit. This squirrel appeared and decided to watch me, probably waiting for the satisfaction of seeing me step in the nearby dog turd (which never happened.)
Instead, I captured it squatting like this in mid-scratch, its leg in a grey blur.

Settings: f/6.3, 1/125, ISO 400, Tamron 70-300, tripod.

023: Ladybirds on Holly

A lucky find today.
I was doing some pruning at the end of the garden when I discovered some red spots on the stubby end of a holly twig, partly obscured by a bushy growth of leaves. I didn't expect to find ladybirds somewhere like this in January.
I set up a tripod right next to the twig and mounted the camera with flash. After much fine repositioning (a requirement of very shallow focus range) I took this final image at f/7.1, 1/180 sec. ISO 100, low power flash. I pointed the flash forward with a foil reflector to angle the light down, and used a piece of white polystyrene underneath to reflect some light back up.