Figure 1 – Eastern chipmunk – Tamias striatus, Assabet River Wildlife Refuge, Maynard, MA, April 18, 2016. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

I was out again at the Reserve this morning and was really taken by this little fellow, who was frozen in place and seemed to be saying: “You lookin’ at me? So I felt compelled to take another chipmunk photograph. I am going to have to abandon my view that they are so common that they are not worth photographing. Perhaps I should start photographing robins routinely. Well, my confession is that as a boy Chip and Dale were my favorite Disney characters.  In any event here he is in his own natural element trying to stay hidden from owls and hawks and other predators.

So again we have the Eastern chipmunk – Tamias striatus. It was once more  a test of my big lens. Here I was shooting at 190 mm and could have used my 70 to 200 mm lens, and the results would probably have been just a bit sharper.Also because of the shade of the forest I was forced to use 1/250th sec, which just meets the one over the focal sharpness rule. I much prefer exceeding by a lot. But of course, when the subject arises you have to seize the moment.

Canon T2i with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens at 190 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/250th sec at f/7.1 with no exposure compensation.