While we humans may fancy ourselves leading very exciting lives, spending our days scrolling through social media and texting leisurely, sometimes animals may teach us a thing or two about enjoying the simple things in life—to slow down and smell the roses as it were.
Well, one animal photographer from the Netherlands is invoking this simple lesson through his lens; of all the animals, the simplest might very well be the ground squirrel, which Dutchman Dick van Duijn captured on his camera while on summer vacation in Vienna.
There are no roses to smell in these pictures; van Duijn, nevertheless, did capture adorable ground squirrels sniffing other wild flowers in idyllic, fantasy-like landscapes from the Viennese countryside. The simple beauty of these scenes is charming.
“We had been photographing the ground squirrels since sunrise that day,” van Duijn told The Epoch Times. “On the evening of the second day, that light was beautiful when this beautiful moment took place.”
These ground squirrels seem to be sniffing flowers for pure enjoyment, but that may just be our imaginations getting carried away. It could simply be lunch that they’re in search of. “We noticed they are really curious about flowers and sometimes they smell or even eat them,” the photographer added.
“This also happened in this scene and I was lucky to capture the moment when the ground squirrel was closing his eyes and hugging the flower.”
So, slow down, stop scrolling on Facebook for a few precious seconds, and check out these cuddly ground squirrels having the time of their lives amidst the tranquil Austrian landscape:
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