Tree shrew

Another soggy morning after a rainy night, wet season is now well under way. This time I went prepared, with a hand towel and a butter knife for mud scraping. I could do with buying a pair of trainers for these conditions.

Started shooting before 6am, it was light but the sun had not pierced this area yet. The beauty of being out this early is that there is no wind and no people to scare off the critters, but I will only have fifteen minutes or so before the farmers start work. The down side is that I am the first person on the path and have to contend with all the overnight spider constructions.

I stood in silence about 10m up the path, the only sounds were the gurgling stream and the crickets, all was very still. I was watching the vegetation to see what popped out. I thought this would be a good opportunity to learn what the different movements meant. I heard a 'dap' sound and a leaf swayed. I sneaked closer and strained my eyes for a clue, but nothing. Then another 'dap' only this time I saw it, a water droplet falling from the branch above, false alarm.

The same 'dap' sound again, only this time the whole plant was moving. This had to be something bigger and it turned out to be a grasshopper. A quick 'skitter' sound and a slight movement of a plant as a tail vanished before my eyes, not to worry, just a skink. I had already noted the disturbance that a snake makes, a constant rustling and the shrubs sway continuously as the snake brushes by, well worth noting!

Dead leaves are falling often here, as there is no autumn, it is a continual process of renewal all year round. But, when several leaves all fell at once it grabbed my attention and I looked up to where the leaves came from and there she was, a squirrel type creature. The light was very poor and the mammal was about thirty feet away, so flash wasn't an option.

As it happened, today I had brought the monopod with me, as my failure rate was getting a bit too high. I cranked up the ISO to 2500 which gave me 1/25th sec, still too slow, but there was going to be a lot of cropping and any more ISO and the grain would take over, this setting was going to be bad enough. I managed to fire off half a dozen shots before I lost her.

I thought long and hard about posting this or not, I had plenty of other quality material, but capturing mammals here is a rarity. Also, I thought the bamboo behind the tree shrew was interesting. The animal was about the size of a normal UK squirrel, this gives you an idea about how large the bamboo grows here as that has to be at least twenty feet up.

I haven't managed to properly identify this tree shrew, as I haven't found an image to match the distinctive striped tail. There is a striped tree shrew Tupaia dorsalis which is quite rare, but again, no pic.

Dave