ok, ok, I read Tom Lusk's post in a thread about 'red squirrels' that there's really not a "black squirrel", rather they're just black variants on a standard grey squirrel ... but a title of "Black Variants of Standard Grey Squirrels of Peter Cooper Village" just doesn't read as well...

My wife had been telling me about these characters always playing in Peter Cooper Village as she goes out for her morning run. When coming home late Chirstmas Day, the Sun was perfect, but setting. I rushed home to get the camera and Sigma 300mm f/2.8 ... but alas, by the time I got back there, the sun was behind the buildings. I tried to make the best of it, and here's some of the results; really few had good focus as I had to shoot handheld, 300mm around 1/60th sec. All in my gallery here:
Black Squirrels of Peter Cooper Village, NYC album | m8o | Fotki.com
W/o direct sun, still not much EV compensation in post. I'm planning to go back when sunny. (I did shoot all @ f/3.2, +1 EV comp in-camera; p.s. all shot @ f/3.2 because I think my rear wheel is not working now too!)

These buggers must get fed a lot, as they were surrounding me and coming too close for the 6 ft. minimum focu distance of the lens @ times.











Of course there were a lot of grey ones too...









C&C always welcome. I know focus was 'off' on most. I tried keeping the rule of thirds in mind, but found I had to compensate cropping in post to meet that 'rule' often. (I know, I know, don't be limited by it... I read the most recent debate thread(s) on the topic. )

[m8o]

On the other hand, as photo objects, they can make good customers. I need to get a decoy that will scare them away BUT not the birds. I hear a plastic owl can do the trick but I want to make sure ALL the birds stay.

??? will or won't. Soorry, I mis-understand. Are you saying an owl [will | won't] chase away the [birds | squirrels]?

I think the Owl scares away the birds more then the squirrels. I have a life size steel/iron/copper/bronze/whatever owl at the peak of my roof in the back,

and I really hardly get birds 'stopping' in my yard or on the deck's railing for a rest (they do think they can fly through the house as from 8' to the roof up front, and as you can see entire back of the house from one end to the other floor to ceiling is glass ... so there's a few every year that commit suicide trying to fly through), but I get loads of squirrels in the shadow of the owl. So, I had been thinking recently the owl is the very reason I hardly see birds in the back, now that I'd like subjects to take pictures of ... well, the 3 dogs I have might have something to do with it too I imagine; we might be on a bird's "no landing zone" for a couple of reasons...

It's about a 20ft drop from the top of the back railing of the deck to the pavers of the backyard, with branches of the mighty oak making it appear like the deck is a tree house. I want to hang a feeder from the end of a branch so that it's about 15ft above the ground in mid-air (though that might be too unstable). I'm hoping the squirrels will think twice about making the trek down the wire off the end of the branch. I might be naive though thinking that.

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Last edited by m8o; 12-27-2007 at 05:56 PM.

[JCSullivan]

As I'm sure you know, squirels can only jump a certain distance, not more.

I don't know whether an owl will keep birds away - I didn't think so.