Story behind the photo - 'Backyard Squirrel - Kevin'

My story surrounding the photograph

This picture is a few years old, and one of the first photos taken to get me into wildlife photography. With the launch of my website, I've realized how many people like this picture and thought I should tell the story of Kevin.

It was a warm summer day, and I was practicing with my camera outside. I hadn't seen any activity in a bit, so I decided to lay on the porch and close my eyes for a bit.

Suddenly, I wasn't alone.

I heard a noice above my head, so I opened my eyes. About half way down the trunk of the tree, I see this little guy chattering away and flicking his tail. I think he was trying to scare me off so he could come down.

I quickly grabbed my camera that was sitting beside me and pointed it straight up. I didn't even check to see if my settings were right, I just started clicking.

Why was I watching the squirrels?

We got introduced to this family of squirrels in kind of a weird way. I was sitting in the living room, and all of sudden my boyfriend screams "JONNI! GET IN THE KITCHEN RIGHT NOW! HURRY!" so I ran in. There was a young squirrel clinging to the screen on our window and peeing. We were wondering what was going on, so we went outside to investigate.

Turns out, our cat Niecee was sitting at the bottom of the window ready to pounce. We chased her away and gave the squirrel space to run over to the tree and get back safely. He was pretty small compared to the squirrels we were used to seeing.

When we looked up in the tree, we saw a family took up residence in an old dove's nest from the year before. There were 5 babies running around the tree! The momma was just starting to teach them to leave the tree, and this one happened to get a little scare on its way back!

Why did we name him Kevin?

Out of all the squirrels, there was one that stuck out the most. This one just seemed a little bit less wild compared to the other squirrels. I am not really sure why we started calling him (or her, I am not really sure what kind of squirrel it is) Kevin, but it stuck all summer. He wasn't as scared of us as the rest of the squirrels were either. He would come down the tree and take a peanut out of my hand, while the others would want to be fed on the roof of the shed.

Where is Kevin now?

To be honest, we aren't sure what happened to Kevin. Once winter hit, we weren't in our backyard nearly as much, and it was hard to keep track of them. We like to think that the next summer when we had more baby squirrels that Kevin was actually a girl and was the mom of the babies. Last summer we fed the squirrels and we called the first one to take a peanut from our hands Ruphus. I think we ended up having 3 or 4 that were called Ruphus.

If you would like to purchase a copy of 'Backyard Squirrel - Kevin', check out my shop on my website or click below!

Take me to see Kevin!