Wednesday, 14-Mar-12 21:39:00 CET

Animals climbing down a tree

I was sipping coffee in the sun on a winter morning at Sunnerås. I had the camera near at hand. It was wind still and a really pleasant moment. A bit further away I hear a bird singing. At first I just enjoyed the sound of the bird, the sun and my coffee.

After a while when I had finished my coffee I started to get curious about what kind of bird can make such a powerful sound so I decided to find that bird. Sometimes the size of the bird can be surprisingly small compared to the sound level they produce.

Not far away from where I was drinking my coffee I could locate the bird. It was a lively bird. It jumped between branches and it looked like it had no problem climbing down the tree. I managed to make this magnificent portrait of this bird while it was doing one of the walks down the tree. It turned out to be a Eurasian Nuthatch, Sitta europaea and the ability to climb down is the unique feature of this bird.

While the weather was nice I continued my exploration and to my surprise I a few moments later I came across another animal also having no problem climbing down a tree, the Eurasian red squirrel, Sciurus vulgaris. The squirrel is extremely shy and I only had a few moments to make the photo. I suppose it is not a unique feature of a squirrel to be able to climb down a tree with the head first. At least it is not mentioned anywhere. What do I know? It looks unique to me!