Shekru near Mahabaleshwar (Giant Malabar Squirrel)

[Kishore Kadam]

Date and time: 10th March 2019, 10.45AM
Place: ~15km from Mahabaleshwar on the way to Satara (Mahabaleshwar Satara Rd)

While travelling from Mahabaleshwar to Pune via Satara, stopped due to ruckus on a roadside mango tree. Noticed the reddish animal on the tree which was different than the typical monkeys found in the area. So I watched carefully, monkeys were chasing a full size Shekru (Giant Malabar Squirrel). Monkeys were distracted by us and left shekru alone. I watched it for 2-3 minutes and took some pictures.

I am still trying to be familiar with smart focusing on the camera and it was refusing to focus on the animal because of the tree branches and leaves. So set the aperture to 16 and took some shots.

BTW, Looks like Shekru was trying to eat mango tree bark or raisin/gum.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Nice sighting. It is normally quite difficult to photograph them as they are usually high up in the canopy. Good eye contact. Please mention the equipment details (camera and lens) and also the EXIF details like ISO, aperture and shutter speed details to help while commenting. Thanks for sharing. Look forward to more.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Good to see this. At one point of time they were prevalent in many places. Hope their numbers increase and they become a familiar sight in many places. Which camera were you using?

[Kishore Kadam]

Sorry about the missing data. It was -
Canon 200d with 70-250mm 4-5.6 STM lens at 250mm @ F16 Aperture Priority, 1/15th Sec, ISO 400.

[V S Sankar]

Pushing the focus button to "Manual" would help in such situations.It is difficult for the camera's auto focus function to latch on to where we want it in such situations.

Nicely captured photo.

Regards

[Kishore Kadam]

Thank you for the tip. This is my new DSLR, so still getting used to new features.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

You can try manual focus when the subject is within dense vegetation. Slight change in focus ruins the shot.