Smithsonian magazine's 22nd Annual Photo Contest | Made possible through the support of MPB.com

19th Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Natural World
If life is a tree of cherries...

...why bother with the pits? This is a variation of the famous book title by Erma Bombeck: If life is a bowl of cherries, What am I doing in the pits? My neighbor has this cherry tree and I decided to take advantage of it when the squirrels are having a field day. But squirrels being squirrels they are skittish. I had to sneak up on them behind a cedar hedge, sometimes on a ladder to get my reach. On this particular day around sunset when the sun was not against me I was happy to get a portrait of this brown squirrel looking back at me as if saying: Hello there or what's up with you? I was as startled as he or she was upon eye contact even though I was seeing through a viewfinder. In that sense we were both caught in the act - the joy of feeding and the joy of photography. The feelings were mutual.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 07.2020
Date Uploaded: 11.2021
Photo Location: Montreal, Canada
Camera: Canon EOS 70D
Copyright: © Peter Lau