Capturing the Magic of Autumn! — Simple Life Northern Sweden

It's already autumn and my red squirrel's calendar is still not finished. I still need a few more images and I need your help bud. This is my first full autumn in northern Sweden. Buddy, I would consider that stealing. And I need the last photographs for my red squirrel's calendar. Like a busy squirrel, I need to collect these last photos before it's too late because the I'm rushing to bring all these projects to life because the autumn magic is fleeting. And by the end of this video, the red squirrel's calendar will finally be here. So join me for the most cozy and enchanting season. It is officially autumn in northern Sweden and I am so excited to be here. I've somehow always missed autumn in Sweden because I might go traveling or doing photography somewhere. Autumn is such a special time. There are so many migrants. We have gold crests, ramblings. But what I'm most excited for this autumn is to photograph the red squirrels in the autumn colours. So today the plan is to try and capture a photo of Buddy or Sylvester with autumn colours in the background and the foreground. Anyway, lots of plans. Let's get started on the first photo. So these are the leaves I have in the foreground of my image. And as you can see, when it's focused on me, these actually become quite blurred. So when I have the long lens and there's greater distance, these become very blurry in the foreground and it makes it look very nice and golden. I have a little pot of food on the branch and currently Buddy is there. The reason I'm stood here so very awkwardly is because directly behind the squirrels in this angle are the golden leaves. And if I squat just a little bit, I can get the golden leaves in the So truthfully, I've been a bit stressed about finishing the calendar. All the images that were missing were autumn photos. And to me, it was worth delaying the calendar to get these photos. I have a few ideas of how I can capture the red squirrels in this autumn magic. I'm amazed by how quickly the squirrels are growing their silver coats ready for the cold winter days ahead. We are having such a lovely autumnal day. It is around 15 Celsius. It's sunny. So I thought I'd discuss the plan for my next autumnal photo. So as a lot of you know, the squirrel we rescued last year, Tort, visited my office window throughout winter, throughout spring and throughout summer. And he's still visiting. And last winter, I got a photo of him from my office looking directly up into the lens. This photo is actually in the calendar, but I want to recreate this, but with autumn. So the plan is to collect lots of birch and rowan leaves that have fallen to position them very nicely around the wooden deck. And hopefully, when Tort comes, I can take a photo from my office window looking down and he is looking up. This is the current plan. So the first leaves are these, which are very nice golden rowan leaves. Some berries have also fallen to the ground, so I'll collect them. So this is my office window, and this is the backdrop. Currently, I raked a load of leaves yesterday and just put a base and I've got all my lovely colourful leaves here. I've now finished the setup. It looks really nice and colourful. And now I just wait for Rockstar Tort. I have put a camera here, so I will get a notification on my phone as soon as he arrives. He should arrive once more today, so hopefully I can test it today. But now I just wait for Tort. Well, I didn't actually get any footage with Tort and all the leaves, because on the very first day I got the photo, which I'm going to keep a secret for now. After photographing squirrels for five years, there's definitely some key things I look out for, and this helps me choose the best photos for the calendar. I often get asked if I get bored photographing the squirrels after five years, and the truth is, the more I've photographed the squirrels, the more interesting images I can see, and now it's a challenge trying to get these images. There are definitely a few things that make a squirrel portrait. The main thing is that you can see the tail, the tail being up, and sometimes they sit with their tail down, but I always try to have it on show in my photographs. I also like to have a certain angle of the head, and lastly, I prefer photos where the squirrels are not eating the food I've provided them. Eating pine cones, natural food, that's all fine, but I don't like seeing the sunflower seeds or the shelled hazelnuts or walnuts in my photographs. I'm still always looking for unique images. These are some of my favourites, and later I'll show you how I find inspiration for new photos. So one of the major steps of launching my calendar is making a new product page on my website, and I'm going to do that now. So as you know, I use Squarespace to run my website and my calendar shop, and this video is sponsored by Squarespace, and you may notice some very cute leaves on my website, and I've done that with custom CSS. It's really easy to have a shop on Squarespace. I'm excited to finish my website for the calendar launch. If you're interested in giving Squarespace a go, you can head to squarespace.com slash dannyconnorwild, and you can save 10% off a new purchase, a website or a domain. It's time for the next photo setup. We have this wonderful birch tree full of gorgeous golden leaves in our garden. I just need a squirrel in the tree. About an hour ago, I put some food in the feeder that's in the tree, and right now there is a squirrel eating, so that's good. The birds and tort had found the feeder the next morning, and the light was magic. There are now two red squirrels in the tree, and it's working out so well, because whilst one is eating, the other one is actually moving around the tree, and I can get some photos. Even just for the birds, this is amazing because I can get all these yellow leaves around them. I think I'm happy with my photos, and I'm very excited to see them on the computer. And now let me tell you a bit about my inspiration. When I'm thinking about ideas for squirrel photographs, I always try to capture the squirrels as if they're in a fairy tale story, and this means I'm always on the lookout for interesting dead fallen trees or mushrooms. And I found an amanita mushroom. Although these are very poisonous to people, red squirrels can digest the toxins without any ill effects. I want to capture their charisma, their charm, their funny moments, and where I get my inspiration for squirrel photographs is actually from children's illustration books. I now have quite a collection of illustration books just on squirrels that I found in secondhand stores in Sweden, and I'm going to show you a few and just show you how these illustrations inspire real photographs. So this is a new one, I found this about a month ago. So just this illustration is beautiful. It has a red squirrel on spruce cones. I still haven't photographed red squirrels eating spruce cones. Red squirrels near amanita mushrooms, I've captured that before and I've actually done it again this year. But this is an absolute dream photograph, a mother squirrel carrying her kit to a different dray, and they do this to keep the parasites in the dray low. After thousands of hours with these squirrels, planning and taking photos, and long days of editing, it's finally ready. I'm very happy to announce that my red squirrels 2026 calendar is now complete, and the front cover had to be our favourite visitor, Tort. It's amazing that this little orphaned red squirrel that our neighbour brought to us, who we ended up rescuing the entire litter of three baby squirrels, has visited me the entire year, and now he's a wild squirrel, and he had to be the front cover of the calendar. The autumnal leaf background worked so well, and I actually got the photo on the very first time that he visited when the leaves were set up, and then after that he decided that he didn't like to step on the leaves, and then he would climb onto the wall instead of actually walking on the leaves. So it was pretty lucky that the very first attempt was the shot. I want to say a massive thank you to my patrons who helped me choose this photo, as well as three other photos within the calendar. After all the stress that I put on myself to make this the best calendar and to get these images, I'm actually quite proud of the calendar. There are some fairy tale portraits, photos of interesting wild behaviour, such as Rue collecting lichen for her drey, and a red squirrel taking a The annual calendar is always a big project. I feel like it's a condensed version of all my work for the whole year. So I just wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone who does pre-order, and even if you can't order, that's absolutely fine. I'm just so grateful for this community, for you watching, and I recently hit 200,000 subscribers, which I think I could never have imagined when I started making videos. It really does mean so much. Thank you for watching, and I'll see you in the next video.