The Eagle and the Squirrel- A story about about wildlife photography and friendship

You can hear a big thunder when the crows are crowing. And all of a sudden, a King's song came in. I still remember that it was 15 seconds when I took that picture. That picture is one of my favorite pictures, because it's my first King's picture. Yeah, I wanted to photograph something epic in snow. I found Conny on Instagram, and I messaged him and said, can I come and photograph eagles? I got eagles, and the goshawk, and the fox. And on the last day, we got squirrels, and that triggered me. It's a bit strange, I guess, having a really good friend who's so much older than you. You know what I was thinking? We should build a squirrel table. That's the same level as the lens holes. But we connect on so many things, and we can talk for hours about wildlife photography or how animals behave. And we get on really well. When I was 96, I really started to spend more time on the King's song. I've been a bit obsessed with the King's song. I thought, if I focus everything on that, I can go wherever I want. So that's why I spent all my time on it. It's incredibly fast and aggressive. You get fascinated by the power and strength of the speed. Then there's the freedom, too. It symbolizes that. It's like the king of sheep, without a doubt. X7222. It's a King's song with a ring to it. I've been following him for 18 years. I followed him several times on the boat, and I could see the youth he brought forth. With the female here. You get that contact. It might sound like you're trying to be human, but I realize that many animals have strong feelings. I must have been 95. I saw that hook in the tree and thought, I want to get a nose on this tree, because it looked so special. Then I spent several months just photographing the tree. Nothing else. February was my turn. I saw that the eagle was sitting there. I read the light and thought, I'll under-expose the bright parts of the eagle. I got some different sequences. One of them looked forward and the lines were correct, and so on. It was a picture I took later. First prize in BBC Wildlife. Photographer of the Year. That was in 1999. I grew up here in Celtic. At the time I was working at the Natural History Museum, so I was seeing thousands of people a day. To come here, I see more squirrels than people. I like it. Someone said, it's so beautiful here. There's snow in the trees. He was simply amazed. We can take it as an experience. He can plan photography. He can plan where an eagle is going to come in. That's something I feel like I still need to learn. Wildlife photography is all about patience. If you don't have it, then you're going to miss the shot. But when something exciting does happen, it is really exciting. You're waiting and waiting, and when that animal is finally there, and you get your photo, there's a big rush of relief and excitement. When you get that feeling that you've got the shot, you've got it. I started to find the squirrels in the forest near the house. After that, I was in the forest for months, working with them, understanding where they are in the forest, where their core ranges are. Sometimes six hours a day, waiting and photographing them. It took a while for them to gain the confidence to be around me and have the trust for me to be around them. It's frustrating when you don't get the photo, for sure. But the good thing is, you can try again tomorrow. The animals are still going to be there. It takes a lot of time to gain an animal's trust. Even with the eagles, they might be sitting around the area for hours before they have the confidence to come down. It's the same with the squirrels. It's just really special when you have that one-to-one interaction with an animal. I think that's a really special moment you can have in wildlife. What's this? Instagram? You can be in my interview. Is it white around? Can you have black or another colour? Or is it just the siding? It's white because the surrounding parts of the image are white. So you can't change it unless you download an app. Why don't you upload it to your feed? I think it's alright. You're the pro wildlife photographer and the pro Instagrammer. I don't know. You don't know? You never would have dreamed that 20 years ago someone would come and rent and pay for a bird's nest in the snow. You must have been really surprised. I think a lot of people around here were surprised as well. You can rent out birds if someone wants to pay. It's quite a big deal. I've been doing this for a year now. I'm going to count. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I had about eight bird nests. Now I have three or four active ones. They've been planned for different purposes. I've put a lot of time and effort into this project. The purpose, the thought I've had with this project. It's really from portraits, flight pictures, action pictures. There weren't that many people who came the first year. But it increased quite quickly. Until 2017-18 when I was able to work 60-70 days straight. It felt like all the time you wanted to snap up. You could see the picture in front of you. It was getting a little better, I must say. Do you ever get sad when you take a picture? No, fortunately not. Save those moments and share them is really special.