Along with two photographer friends I spent three days in the Yorkshire Dales photographing the Red Squirrels. We were based in Hawes and on two of our days we spent time in a hide run by local photographer Paul Fowlie. One of the two hides overlooked a small pond which was great for catching the reflections of the squirrels and also tempted birds to come to the water.

Apart from Safaris in Africa and Napel, I’d never done any nature photography but really enjoyed the experience. Large animals, like elephant, rhino and lion are relatively easy to photograph but these squirrels seem to move at a hundred miles an hour wherever they go.

I used a Leica SL2 camera with the 90-280mm Vario-Elmarit lens and also Sigma kindly loaned me a 500mm f5.6 lens which was absolutely superb. So much so that I bought one. Compared to my Nikon 600mm f4.0 which I would have taken, the Sigma was so small and light it was a pleasure to use and was well capable of being hand-held.

All in all, a great experience and I certainly intend to try my luck with other birds and animals.