Karen Miller Photography

18/06/2026

Hamsters may have been the primary reason for my visit to Vienna, but I was also keen to see the European ground squirrels. They are primarily found in a couple of parks, and are active all day - very active! They are, as the name might suggest, ground dwellers who live in burrows and like short grass. They would pop up all over the place quite unconcerned about all the people milling around. Fantastic little guys. Quite different in every way from the red squirrels much more similar in appearance to another relative, the prairie dog.

18/06/2026

(Image is a hamster... read full post)

I've had not 1, not, 2 but 3 red squirrels in the garden this morning - one of which was a kitten. Adorable and a little distracting! Also seeing so many fledglings. Fantastic.

But... back to hamsters. One of the many things I enjoyed about watching them was how they ran. They seemed to double in length as they bounced along on their little legs. Sometimes running across the cemetery roads. On our first morning, contrary to every weather report I'd read, we had some torrential rain. It didn't stop the hamsters though who looked very soggy.

17/06/2026

I'm back home now after a very enjoyable weekend in Vienna hanging out with European hamsters, ground squirrels, red squirrels and green woodpeckers, plus a visit to the Vienna Zoo.

The hamsters were wonderful and totally lived up to expectations. They are critically endangered but they are doing well in the Vienna cemeteries. They are considerably bigger than pet hamsters, around the size of a guinea pig, with little legs, a short tail, large ears and a long body. The hamsters are mostly crepuscular so we had early starts, arriving at the cemeteries at opening time.

I wasn't sure what to expect, or how easy it would be to spot them. I had done my research in advance though, and friend, Cathy, who has been a couple of times was very helpful too. So my travel companion Janet and I knew where to go and what to look for.

It is a tad strange sitting in a cemetery, surrounded by tombstones, photographing hamsters but the cemeteries are very nature friendly with feeders and water bowls put out for the wildlife.

The tree in this image was a favourite of the hamsters. There was a burrow just where this hamster is and one would often disappear down it with cheeks full of grass.

15/06/2026

I'm heading back to Scotland today after a fantastic 2 days in Vienna. The hamsters and ground squirrels were awesome 😍.

This one came a little too close 😂. Lots of photos to go through.

10/06/2026

I'm heading to Vienna for the weekend... not for culture and sight-seeing, but to hang out in cemeteries looking for European Hamsters! I've wanted to see these awesome animals in the flesh since watching one of the David Attenborough nature docs a few years ago. Hopefully I'll have lots of images of them (and ground squirrels) to share on my return.

If you don't know what a European Hamster looks like, here's a clip from the aforementioned documentary. There is a longer one online too if you do a web search.

If it fits in my cheeks, I eats! Wild hamsters roam the graveyards of Vienna in search of fresh flowers and candle-wax, sometimes with hilarious consequences...

09/06/2026

Another bird, this time more local. Easily mistaken from a distance as a warbler, it is in fact a spotted flycatcher. Very pretty birds and they tend to stick to very small territories which makes it easy to find them again!

These two images were taken on two different days - one hot and sunny the other very wet and dull!

07/06/2026

A couple of images I took en route home from Orkney. A woodchat shrike had been hanging out in the same spot for a couple of weeks and as the location was only a short diversion off my route home I popped along to check him out. This species is a fairly rare visitor to the UK so I was delighted to have the chance to see him. Beautiful bird.

These images are big crops as he never came very close. It's rare that I wish I owned the Nikkor Z 800mm f6.3, but this was one of the days I did!

04/06/2026

A few squirrel images from the fab couple of hours I spent with them on Monday morning. I introduced them to my latest Intro to Wildlife client yesterday, she loved them too 😍

And in related news, I had 2 red squirrels in the garden this morning as well as very soggy fledgling tree sparrows.

02/06/2026

I had a wonderful time with the red squirrels this morning. 5 in at once - very entertaining. This was one of the moments that I witnessed which I thought I'd share with you. Turn up the volume to hear the "leave me alone" vocalisations from the female 😍 .

02/06/2026

While I was off enjoying the wildlife of Orkney a friend of mine was finding local brown hare hotspots. She had a lot of success and it really does appear that hare numbers in this area are rising which is fantastic news! In fact, as my last client Peter and I drove down to the main road from my house the other day a hare ran along the road in front of us!

A week or so ago I visited one of the hotspots. The crops are now of such a height that hare watching will have to pause until the harvests, but we did see a few. One, which started out in the middle of a field, slowly made its way to a corner, had a groom (which we watched through the trees) and then ambled down the road, at one point collecting a dandelion head. Fantastic 😍