NIGHT WITH THE BADGERS

14.9.20

I spend Monday night with the Badgers and each time they are coming out earlier as the evenings start to draw in.

The first ones appeared just before 8 pm and then on and off till 4 am when I called it a night, literally.

Usually, they go off wandering for an hour then one makes an appearance so it’s not all action and I generally dose in my chair until I hear they either climbing through the hedge or hear them eating, crunching on the peanuts I’ve left out for them.

Last time I did more videos as my flashes wouldn’t work with my new Nikon Z6 but this time I brought my trusty Nikon D5 for the flash system I wanted to try again.

I used 3 Speedlight flashguns with wireless triggers set to 1/4 power and spaced these around the set I have built for them.

I am using single shot on my stills camera and watching the response from the Badgers and to be honest, they don’t care and are quite as ease.

This time it worked well apart from appearing brighter on the LCD screen than in lightroom after, note to self, watch the histogram not the screen, but happy it’s progressing and to say I haven’t seen a live badger until a month ago let alone used off-camera flash at night I’m really pleased with the results.

While it’s dry I will continue to put a bit of food for them, and having already built them a drinking pool they’re ok for water.

I’m planning a foraging area for them with tonnes of woodchip and once this gets wet is full of worms so they should visit even when wet. Another project.

Here are some photos from last night.