TomKal foto

When it comes to this species our adage needs to be changed, not three is a charm, but four. Badger is a mysterious animal and rare enough that you want to have a gallery of this beautiful mammal. But, how to do it as it’s a night animal by nature? Photographs made with lamp, at least to my conviction, are out of the question. Within two years there were four attempts to take satisfying pictures. In the place I knew to be a badger’s burrow, of course. Here I must thank Andrzej for the hints without which these pictures would not be. First attempt, last year, was at night. The day before I have checked the spot, cut the nettle blocking the way to take photos and drove back at night to wait peacefully until dawn, noon even. I didn’t see a badger even for a moment. I have decided to try in the afternoon and waited until dusk. To increase the probability I have scattered some corn, their favorite, to get a chance to keep on photographing them longer. Effectiveness of the second attempt was exactly the same as of the first one. Third attempt, night-morning one also failed. I think that planning to photograph the badgers you need to assume that it is better not to complicate things, and do not approach their burrows as their scent is supreme and their temper pugnacious. Badger, as he is an unrefined omnivore it can also be aggressive, especially when protecting its den. Places in which I had the pleasure to photograph the badgers resemble a fairytale scenery, especially when badgers are there. Very deep ravine (around 10 meters), where on one side there is one of three entrances to the badger’s burrow, on the other, opposite, side is the spot where I’m shooting from, but only masked with a net. Space from the burrow is hardly dozen or so meters, and a ravine gives me and badgers a sense of a safe distance and maybe makes picture taking possible. And that’s because in a dense forest even on a sunny day I set ISO to 1250 and shutter to 3.5, depending on the spot I go for, times are 1/400 or 1/100. As the sun goes down, I keep the times 1/100, 1/200, which isn’t comfortable with a 400mm lense, but quite acceptable. I turn the sensitivity to final 5000 and I end the shooting with 1/60 time. That’s it for the opening and the description of the beautiful place, which has been a home for badgers for many years. I start waiting - 5:00 pm, an hour passes, two, nothing. Sitting silently I suddenly spotted in the crack of an old oak a pair of hoopoes bringing food to their young. But not today. Today the badgers must come out. This is the fourth time. And suddenly, first badger appears. An adult emerged and unfortunately disappeared in the forest green. Unluckily, all the pictures are blurred. Unexpectedly he came back after two minutes. I check the effect of the second try. AF set to bushes and offsetting, which I know of, is the badger. I assume that after a daylong nap he simply used the toilet. Badger’s burrow is supposedly clean and badgers take a good care of it. If this is all the contact I establish, after four approaches, I guess it’s the last. But you can forget about results in nature photography without patience. I wait for almost an hour and the fourth approach finally ends with observation of the badger’s colts coming out. First, one of them faintly put out his head, took a smell and came out. Then the second with a third. I knew from Andrzej that there are three. But to my surprise the fourth, fifth and sixth appears, without their parents. I think it sensed me and went feeding using different entrance. Little badgers started playing around, romping and wrestling for the leadership or maybe to master their hunting skills? It is interesting that when “fighting” with each other they didn’t make any sound. Their beautiful, irreproachable fur absorbs the fall downs and throws splendidly. All six looked amazing and the picture of the badgers’ idyll is hard to describe. For such moments it’s worth trying not four, but many many more times. I’ve got a microphone at hand hoping that to fully give the atmosphere of this place sound recording would be a perfect completion. Unfortunately, for over an hour of play I only heard couple of silent grunts. They were very skittish, and when adjusting my position I inadvertently cracked a stick, which sound made the badgers form a line of black and white stripes which disappeared instantly in the burrow. Luckily, after a moment they went back out to start the romping on a small threshing floors around the den. I don’t know whether it is the number of approaches and time commitment or the “fluffy”, dear look of the young badgers that made observing and perpetuating them an incredible thrill. Judging by the badgers’ age it was the last moment to photograph them as the completely small badgers do not leave the burrow, and the almost adult ones feed at night with their elders. So I managed to photograph juvenile badgers. Even though most of the pictures were not sharp it was possible to select couple of them to create presented gallery. I invite you to take a look at the pictures, which will hopefully render more than an hour of converse with badger young and the charm of this place. Imagine that right then you could hear the typical sounds of the forest with orioles and chaffinches in the background…