MARTIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS

Okay, before we start, I’d just like to say that they’re not really “Chipmunks” at all, and I’m fully aware of this. In fact, they’re “Californian Ground Squirrels” but “Martin and the Californian Ground Squirrels” just really didn’t have the same snappy ring to it. Anyway, all of the other people around us were, in our general ignorance, calling them “Chipmunks” too, so, until I got home and had access to such things as Search Engines once more, “Chipmunks” they remained.

At least in my head.

When I’m on holiday these days, I like to go and photograph, in my own inept way, as much of the local bird life as I possibly can. This started when we began to encourage the wee feathered beasties into our garden, continued as we began to visit nature reserves and bird sanctuaries a few years ago, and became a habit when we specifically went on a “bird-watching” trip on the Nile a couple of years ago.

Nowadays it’s probably the bird-life that makes up the second-most bulk of the vast quantities of photographs we return from any trip with, after any impressive pieces of architecture that happen to catch our fancies and then get the living daylights snapped out of them.

Anyway, as I clambered over various coastal rock formations in my attempts to get my inadequate telephoto equipment close enough to the birds to get a half-decent snapshot, we became more than a little aware of these rather cute, furry creatures that kept on coming up ever so closely to us, presumably begging for food.

They seemed awfully tame but, as their cousins are back home, I was pretty sure the locals regarded them as total pests. Nevertheless, they were an example of local wildlife and we thought that we might not get another opportunity to see them again, so we snap-shooted the Bejesus out of them and went back to our bird-watching.

A couple of hours later, we pulled up at a large car park at a “Vista Point” because I was screaming to use a loo after bolting down far too many free refills of the coffee at our diner of choice that day on top of a bucket of O.J.

Oblivious to my surroundings, I gratefully dashed off to the “Public Restrooms” (sorry if this is all getting too graphic…), and, as I walked back feeling much relieved, I noticed that we had stopped at “Bird Rock” and, just across a narrow stretch of water there were hundreds of Cormorants, although it rapidly became apparent that “Bird Rock” was mostly occupied by a vast quantity of Seals and Sea-lions all packed together like a Hieronymous Bosch depiction of hell.

The endless honking should, of course, have alerted me to this.

Watching the watchers

Anyway, as this was a “Vista Point”, a coach-load of tourists from Japan had pulled up and were busily using the pay telescopes to view this rather impressive wildlife scene and, as I approached them, it became apparent that there were also many more of the little furry “Californian Ground Squirrels” running about, only this lot were as tame and as fearless as they come, presumably after having been fed by countless other coach-loads of tourists and others over many years.

Anyway, this lot were so comfortable with human beings that they would let you get within inches of them and not run away which, to someone like me, aspiring to take the occasional half-decent wildlife shot, was too good an opportunity to miss.

(I bet the little furry harlots pose for everyone else, too, but I was still rather impressed with these cute little bundles of fur anyway…)