Today is my Birthday and I’m very excited to say that I have a strange Birthday present,a real surprise,It’s the N78 from SymbiaNational Geographic contest for the photo shown above.

Last week I was kinda busy with my work,and was struggling to find some spare time time to blogg,but it turned into a really long week.Anyway things do happen in strange ways whenever I feel like moving away from blogging something brings me back on to the stage,this happened several times,and now it ’s happening again.If you are a frequent reader here,the story of squirrels might not be a strange thing,So again the Lucky squirrel brought me luck,last time I won the N95 8GB and the Mobile Film Making kit,this time an N78.Thats the long story in short but I got so many request for an explanation on how I shot the photo which made its way to the first place(85 votes out of 99 in the Jury) SymbiaNational Geographic contest held at p@sco’s site.So here’s a complete dated diary of this story,

7th of April 2008

I found these two infants orphaned,in their nest,dunno what happened to their mother,she never showed up.They were very small and haven’t even opened their eyes at the time I found them.So there was no way for them to survive on their own,especially in the cold and rain.So we took fed them and took care of them,with our full effort and both were doing well,they opened their eyes after a day or too,but unfortunately the weaker one didn’t make it,and left us after a week or so.The one survived grew rapidly and It’s a great pleasure to nurture an animal and observe how he grew,I was lucky enough to experience all the stages of his life and I documented it all with my N80,Loaner N82 from WOM World and with the N95 8GB.

After about a month,he started to venture out and explore the world where he really belonged,so we never try to stop him but in the  first few days,it was kind of a difficult task to keep an eye on it,cos we had to always look what he’s doing out there and whether he’s adapting to the nature back again.Step by step he graduated and successfully passed all the hurdles of his life,except one thing,he didn’t have the guts to stay outside at the night.So to spend the Night he always rushed in before it gets dark out there.He loves to sleep on top a tube light and warm up a bit.

22nd of April 2008

I Saved the life of another squirrel from a crow(sorry I stole his meal,I don’t like to interfere the way it should be in nature but I couldn’t stop my self,that cry for help was that intensive)I bought him home and it wasn’t a big deal for me to nurture him,but the problem was to keep the little buddy away from the big brother as he showed no love at first,probably its because he had never seen baby squirrel before other than his brother.So it was another task for me keep them apart and feed them separately,Cos though the big one oftenly stay outside he sometimes come inside in search of hi favourite biscuits.

16th July 2008

Something amazing happened today,Big one has finally managed to find the place where I kept him hidden,and I thought that’s the end of the little one.But miraculously he didn’t bite him,instead they started to groom each other and bit by bit they started to live in peace.After few day they both started to go out together and that was an event I enjoyed alot.

23 July 2008

The big one built a nest outside my house and started to spend the night there,succeeding his final step of blending back to the wild,and in few days the little one too followed him.So now they both can live on their own,can find food,I see them playing with the other squirrels too.But still they come to see me,love to being fed,and  some times comes inside my house especially when it rains at night.

I was able to shot some nice photos,especially of the big bro(little one doesn’t pose for the camera much instead he always needs a bite off from my phone),also I was able to snap some very unusual behaviours,that we rarely get a chance to observe,like the one showing how he sleeps(Not drunken :-)),and the way they groom each other(these shots are not in good quality as I snapped most of them at night and  they move very fast)

So that’s all about the squirrel story,that everybody was very curios about,hope this answers all the questions and doubts.

Now its time to talk about the contest,First of all a big thank goes to Pietro(p@sco) for coming up with such an idea,I participated it without knowing what the prize is,as it was a pleasure for me to join such a competition because I love nature and love to meet others who do so.Thanks for the N78 and the full credit should go to my squirrel.

Also I wanna thank the jury for selecting my entry and all the people who commented on OVI and in the p@sco’s site.It’s a great pleasure to know there are so many tech geeks who love nature and most of all I met so many bloggers who are passionated with Nature photography like James Burland,Mike Macias,Pietro Paschino and many more.So Thanks again for all the appreciations and your comments makes me and my squirrels feel happy.

Full Slideshow,

This entry was posted on Friday, September 12th, 2008 at 7:15 pm and is filed under SymbiaNational Geographic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.