Yesterday was rainy and cool and most of the birds were staying warm and dry in the tree foliage and the underbrush. There were a few birds that were out and about, but the bird watching was pretty slow. Luckily, there were several eastern grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) that really didn’t seem to be put out by the rain at all. They helped to keep me amused when there were no birds around. Two of them were racing around chasing each other, like they often do.

While I followed them in and out of the leafy branches of my old live oak tree with my camera, I caught this series of shots as one of them launched itself from one limb to another. As you watch it, it seems like one quick, clean motion, but when you break it down into still images, you can definitely see the stages of the jump including preparation, takeoff, flight, and finally landing.

Unfortunately, the landing occurred behind the leaves that are in the lower right corner of all the images, so I wasn’t able to capture that.