Weasel, a brilliant encounter.

I have just returned from a week in Huddersfield West Yorkshire.  I am quite sure that if I lived there I would be able to find some great wildlife to photograph.  August is the worst time of year for birding so I didn't see too much, but enough to whet the appetite.  The highlight was an interaction with a Merlin when, at the same time that I noticed a small group of tits, so did the the raptor.  It swooped in at breakneck speed and I am not sure if it was a successful foray or not, but it was a thrill to see it.  Then, at the RSPB Reserve at Old Moor - near to Rotherham - I saw Tree Sparrow and had my very first glimpse of a Bearded Reedling or Bearded Tit as they are alternitevely known.  This was a massively lucky sighting, 2 pairs bred there this year for the first time so to see one of them was pretty lucky to say the least.  But my best encounter was with two Weasels.  We took the dog for a walk along a very long and not often used track come road towards Deer Hill Reservoir on Marsdon Moor.  There was a large flock of finches feeding on thistles just over the wall and in to a field which was bordered by a typical moorland stone wall. I decided to see if I could photograph them because I knew it would be a good photograph with Goldfinches precarioulsy balancing on the thistles. I ducked behind the wall and waited - my wife  walked on to the car and I said I would follow on in 10 minutes.  After an unsuccessful wait for the finches I stood up and suddenly 2 weasels were moving accross the track like quick silver towards the stone wall, I could clearly see that they were tiny and noticed the russet redness of their coats before they  quickly disappeared in to the brick work. Now I wasnt too disappointed, I had seen them and I doubted that I would get a photograph anyway.  But I froze with my camera at the ready, I had the 500 lens on and also a 1.4 converter but I was hand holding. I have read and been told on numerous ocassions that if you freeze when you see either a stoat or weasel they will quite often return for a look at you.  I made a few sqeeking sounds to imitate a hurt rabbit (hopefully) and then after jsut a few seconds, one of the tiny mustelids pocked its head ot of the grass and peered at me. This was just wonderful and I snapped away.  It seemed like an age before it disappeared again but it was perhaps just a few seconds, long enough for me to take a dozen or so pictures. For some really odd and annoying reason I had the cameras sensitivity set at 2500 ISO.  If you are a pjhotographer you will know how ridiculous that is and surely any pictures would be aweful.  But in this instance this was a big help because it meant that I had achieved 1/5000 of a second and as I was handheld, this is probably the kind of shutter speed that I needed..... a stroke of luck indeed.  The results were nice and I managed photographs of a weasel for the very first time in my life, brilliant!