It started with birding, but quickly morphed into photos of any and all wildlife within the perimeter of our property. The variety is actually quite astounding! Wes used his telephoto lens to capture action shots of birds, bugs, cats, and plants through the Spring and Summer months. Our favorite animals to observe were definitely the squirrels, though. They are so cute, agile, and quirky. There's nothing like seeing one hop from tree branch to roof like a superhero, observing a hungry pregnant squirrel going at a freshly picked orange, or enjoying the sight of young squirrels (quite possibly her pups) playing raucously early in the morning. Wes insisted on making rainbow colored ladders for the squirrels to play on using scrap wood in the garage, which I thought was sort of ridiculous. We made them anyway and they look cute, whether the squirrels actually make use of them or not. On the hot days, Wes would turn on the sprinklers to spritz the grass and make it cooler for them, since we noticed that they like to lie in the grass to cool off. For fun, we would leave oranges around to see if they would take them. The squirrels provided a daily perk to look forward to and their surprising behaviors never ceased to amaze us. Sometimes, it just comes down to noticing the simple things in times like this. If we weren't home so much, we may never have known of this circle of life occurring right in our yard.
