The local badgers

[Tringa]

Badgers first arrived in the garden a couple of years ago and since then I have been trying to get a reasonable shot of them.

Their sight is not great. I have read their hearing is not too good, but they appear to be very easily disturbed by the smallest of sounds and their sense of smell is excellent, so many times I have missed the chance of a shot because I have frightened them.

Details of the shot - f7.1, 1/100s, ISO 400, lens at 55mm and on-camera flash.

As always all comments will be welcomed.

Dave

[Ziggy]

Badgers are cool looking, thanks for sharing.

[Nicks Pics]

Congrats, it's surprising that you got 55mm close. If you don't mind my mentioning, there is light line right along the edge of the upper left hand side of the frame that is slightly annoying if you think about it.

[MarieV]

Well captured Dave.

[Stagecoach]

One of those priceless captures Dave, and to think they have been culling these guys.

[JR1]

OMG you fortunate person

[ST1]

Well caught

[jamn4ex]

Nicely Done, I guess the years of waiting for the perfect shot paid off!

[IzzieK]

Hmmm...I have to google what badgers are. They look cute. The one that caught my attention first was the little red dot where the standing one is foraging. I thought it was a point and shoot camera.

[NorthernFocus]

That's cool. Thanks for sharing.

[Shadowman]

Nicely captured.

[Tringa]

Thanks for the comments all.

Well spotted, Nick and I have to admit to poor cloning there. The area to the left and above of the standing badger's shoulder is a wall that is painted white and was very distracting. I tried to clone it out but should have been more careful and not left a trace.

There has been cull of badgers in a small area of south west England, Grahame. Badgers are carriers of Bovine Tuberculosis so some farmers want the badgers culled as any cattle found to have Bovine TB are culled too. However, it is not that simple, removing badgers from an area makes it available to others, other wildlife also carry the disease, eg fallow deer and the test used on cattle is not perfect, so an animal that tests negative may have the disease, could be moved to another farm and spread the disease.
These two badgers are in Scotland where there has been no cull and Scotland has been official free of Bovine TB for a number of years.

The red spot close to the standing badger was a bit of luck, Izzie. It is a peanut the badger flicked up as it tried to scrape them closer. I'd love to say I waited for it, but I did not notice it until I looked at the shot.

Dave

[GBO25]

Cool little dudes and doesn't that one standing up look good. I know they're found in lots of other places but to me they're just so English.