Recently I bought a cheap trail cam to see what is going on overnight at the wood, the first night I saw foxes come and go and then checking the camera every two days I was surprised to see a single Badger early in the evening followed by at least 3 at once later that week.
I saw them on the camera over several nights so not just a one-off.
I decided yesterday the 28.7.20 to stay over and see if I could catch them on camera, to be honest, I’ve only ever seen them dead in the road so was quite excited just to see one if I could.
I knew it wouldn’t be easy so I set up a LED light to give me a little illumination so I could get a lock on them if any turned up, I didn’t want to use flash so very high iso’s where used up to 20,000 at times as they went into the shadows, but mostly in the 6400 – 9000 range so wasn’t expecting anything detailed.
I was shooting wide open with my 300 lens at f2.8 to f4 to gather as much light as possible and as they were around 25 meters away big crops for now as I didn’t want to disturb them.
It was a clear star-filled night and I felt very privileged to be part of there world for a few hours and saw my first one just as it turned dark and then throughout the night visiting a number of times, two at once at times.
I love the noises they make as they root around and if I listened carefully I could hear them coming which gave me time to get ready.
I gave them a few handfuls of peanuts to supplement their diet of worms, berries, etc and this kept them around for a while giving me chance to get some shots.
The slightest noise, (me moving position in my chair) had them charging off into the brambles, sometimes reappearing quickly, sometimes later on, when deemed safe.
Quite chuffed and privileged to have captured some photos and working out how to improve for next time.
Here are a few from last night.
Thanks for looking.
Comment
Wow John, such a privilege to see them in their natural environment. And amazing photos despite any crop and high ISO.