Last nights Portraits

We had a nice show from two of our local fox cubs again last night.  Both arrived together and had a good forage around interacting to find our latest peanut stash which never takes them very long.

When the first of two badgers arrived on the scene both cubs decided to abort their visit but they were leaving happily with the treats that they had come for.

The two badgers had a good root around but failed to produce the   ' Pole Dancing '   shots that I had been looking for but           ' Watch this space '

With the Badgers gone our ex-ferrel male cat Mr Purdhu had to check out the scene just in case any treats had been missed !

Bolder Badgers !

As Darkness fell we had another visit from a pair of local Badger that were first seen a couple of nights ago rooting around the fall out zone of a sunflower hearts bird feeder in our garden.

They appear to be getting bolder as when they arrived a bit early we had external and internal lights on and our lounge patio doors wide open with the TV on but undeterred they just carried on foraging in the same areas as on previous nights.

I was set up for and looking to capture images of the pair interacting but this was easier said than done as they tended to work their way around our garden independent of each other but I will have to see if I can tempt them closer together with a couple of nutty treats tonight.

Between 8 and 11 PM last night we had two Badgers, Three cat including our own recently adopted stray and two fairly mature Fox Cubs foraging around our garden and it was interesting to watch the changes to the pecking order as they came close to each others locations.

The powerful new-comer Badgers ruled the roost,  The Cats all kept their distance from the Badgers but stayed in the area if they wanted too and the Fox cubs gave way to all and left each time there was an encounter with Cats or Badgers only to return again as soon as they thought that the garden might be clear.

Badger close-up Portraits

We had a pair of visiting Badgers in our garden again last night and this time I set my camera up on remote firing again using a preset focal length of 35mm and manual focus of around 1.5m  and an aperture of F9 on a zoom lens to capture some reasonably close portraits.

I also used a digital TTL flashgun for exposure which I was pleased to find that the Badgers ignored to the extent that they were still foraging around the garden long after I had finished my shoot.

The camera was set in manual mode and I used the maximum flash compatible shutter speed of 1/250 sec to freeze the badger reasonable slow movements,

The camera/tripod assembly/ remote receiver were set up in a middle of a planted patio garden feature at around 1.5 metres from the proposed badger shooting area.

All that remained for me to do now was to sit comfortably in my lounge to watch and wait for some action as darkness fell then fire away remotely through my patio door double glazing without disturbing the Badgers.   I could get used to this !!

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I am currently hatching a plan for a little more action and perhaps some interaction between the two Badgers this evening so :  Watch this space again tomorrow !!