Badgers are GO!

My first badger photo! Well, one from a sequence anyway. This is a huge moment for me. Since I began wildlife photography, I had always dreamed of one day photographing wild badgers. To me, they are the quintessential British mammal and can be very difficult to see, let alone photograph.

I have opted for a very natural approach here: Arriving at the sett hours before sunset; leaving small morsels of food scattered around the sett; waiting for the badgers to emerge; firing off a single frame at a time so as not to scare them too much. I am wholly reliant on ambient light as I have decided against flash for the time being. I am not overly keen on flashed badgers - the images look quite surreal with a nocturnal animal bathed in bright light. Instead I have used high ISOs of 800 or 1000 and a 300mm f/2.8 lens. My shutter speeds are usually less than 1/100th sec, so I rely on a remote lead and sturdy tripod to minimise camera shake.

This was shot at 8:39pm and the sun had all but set. This years cubs always appear several minutes before the adults and are often called back inside the burrow by their mum. I have a window of about 20mins before it is too dark to focus. Then, I sit and wait and watch the badgers until it is too dark to see. Once they are back inside their burrow or dispersed, I leave the sett as quietly as I approached. Can't wait to get back there!