Badger Culling - Part 2

Following on from Dave's blog on this subject last month, I heard about an alternate option today that is being pursued in Gloucestershire, the neighbouring county to me so thought I would share it with you.

Back in June, the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust announced it would commence vaccination trials on Badgers in this story here.    Today, I picked up via Twitter that fourteen animals have been vaccinated at one location alone - good news for those creatures, even though the cull that has been much discussed is probably a long way off yet.  Reading on further, more details can be found here as well.

I am encouraged by this and hope that this might prove to be the solution.

If you want to support Badger protection in any way, the Badger Trust website is here.

Finally, one more quick plug for the Big Butterfly Count - don't forget to join in and send in your records.

Mine for my garden is as follows;

6 Large White

1 Red Admiral

2 Comma

7 Gatekeeper

2 Meadow Brown

I Common Blue

2 Peacock

Quite happy with that for a small patch - shows the wildlife planting has worked anyway.

Martin

Guest Blogger-Graham Goddard

 I am pleased to have Graham Goddard as todays guest Blogger, Although i have not actually met Graham in person i have watched his progression in wildlife photography through various forums and we have exchanged a few e mails about shooting fox and badger, A couple of things struck me about Graham, Firstly he has good fieldcraft-The most important thing for successful wildlife photography and like me he likes to go out and find his 'own' wildlife and has tackled some difficult subjects like kingfisher,barn owl and badgers with success which shows determination-all the traits that you need if you want to be consistently successful, Read on

I was very flattered to be asked to prepare an article for WATW, so a big thanks to Dave and Martin for asking me to do so.

I have my own blog  and write regulary on there, but at first, the thought of preparing something for someone else was a bit daunting. Should I write about some techniques I use, locations I visit or the equipment I use ? In the end, I decided to write about a project that I've found utterly challenging, but very satisfying indeed - more of that later though.

Firstly, a little about myself - I'm a self taught amateur photographer and keen wildlife enthusiast. I've had a life long interest in nature which I think I can thank my parents for - they own yacht which as a child I sent most of my summer weekends and holidays upon.

We cruised the Essex & Suffolk coasts and rivers and on main holidays, made our way to France, Belgium and Holland. My opportunities to get up close to sea and shore life was ever present and as a young RSPB member, ticking off my first Avocet sighting in Holland or my first Sandwich tern was exciting.

About 4 years ago I decided to buy a DLSR - in a slightly drunken moment, I bid on a 30D plus loads of kit on ebay. I won it, and have not looked back since.

The 30D (and all the kit) has since been sold off and upgraded as invested more and more money in this expensive hobby. I now spend a lot of my free time photographing, planning projects, going on trips and observing the wildlife in South-East England and East Anglia.

One project that I've devoted almost a divorce inducing amount of time to is Badgers, which is the subject of this piece.

I discovered a set a year ago. Having no experience of these animals other than on TV or from seeing the odd dead one at the side of the road, I had no idea how to go about seeing them, let alone getting any shots.

My discovery set me up for one of the most frustrating, but enjoyable projects that I've so far attempted in photography.

Enlisting the help of my friend Calum, I started putting a little food down for them so that we could at least confirm their presence.

We then started our vigils and I've lost count of the hours spent at that set last summer, waiting for darkness and straining to see any sign of movement in the gloom.

Over time, we got plenty of sightings - owls, deer, fox, hare, bats - even the odd bloke with his dog. The badgers were scarce and I was beginning to think that there must be and easier way to do this.

We did get badger sightings, but they were very brief, the badgers were very wary, and they usually appeared a long way from my carefully placed, pre focused and remotely triggered camera.

The set itself is on farmland that I have permission to access but what didn't help was that the farmer had planted a huge crop of sweetcorn adjacent to the set - so guess what, the badgers developed a liking for the corn and whilst we could hear them running around and eating it in the field, sightings were rare.

October arrived, the weather turned, and we decided to stop for 2010.

This year, we started the project again in April. Regular visits to place a few tasty morsels after work were shared between us and we were delighted that on our first vigil, we were greeted to the wonderful sight of not just one, but five cubs, all foraging for the peanuts we'd left for them.

As April and May have progressed, the badgers have got used to my presence, the shutter noise and crucially, my scent. I've been able to get closer to the set and, crucially, the cubs are now bold enough to venture out before sunset.

Just sitting and watching these super creatures is a pleasure and photographing them in broad daylight is an experience that will live with me for years to come.

I am looking forward to seeing the cubs grow as the year passes and if Dave and Martin ask me to write an entry again, I'll let you have an update.

I've a few more projects on the go at the moment, so check my own blog if you want to see the results of those

For now though, here's my favourite shot so far.

cheers


Graham
GJG Photography'

It would be great if Graham could do an update in a few months, i have mentioned in previous blogs that i tend to shoot in a project style i.e take 1 subject and spend some time shooting it over a period of time, Badgers can be one of the most difficult of subjects to shoot especially if they are nocturnal only animals-some venture out in daylight and some will only come out well after dark
Again thanks to Graham and look forward to the update

Dave

Tips and Techniques- Use of wireless multi flash

Once again i will back up Martins last post about the use of remote wireless flash use,A couple of years ago i spent a very nice summer shooting European Badgers at night,Badgers suffer from 'white eye' if the lights are on camera so need to be set away from the camera/lens set up. I started off using the 2 EX550 flashguns that i had,both in front of the subject and one to either side of the camera, This was OK but gave a 'studio' feel to the shot so i bought 2 more flashguns so that i had 2 in front of the subject and 2 behind lighting up the background, This gave more depth to the image rather than just having a black background,I was shooting with Canon gear at the time using the ST-E2 to trigger the flashguns that had been set as 'slaves', the set up i had for badgers was 1 flashgun set about 4 feet each side of the camera-1 being about 5 feet high shooting down and 1 set low to the ground, The idea being to light the badger from above with the high light and the low light would lighten underneath the chin, I would look through the viewfinder and see what needed to be lit behind and set the lights up accordingly,A simple but effective set up, I had the ST-E2 set up on a L bracket so i could swap from landscape to portrait without affecting the trigger,The focusing was set to manual and i would prefocus whilst it was still light on a small amount of food that i had carefully placed,


I also used Canons 20D instead of the 1D MK2 that i had at the time as the shutter was much quieter and was less likely to spook the animal-today i would use the 1D3 if i still use Canon as it has a brilliant silent shutter mode,
You can trigger 'slave' flashguns by having a 'master' gun set up on the camera but i preferred this set up for what i was doing at the time, I still have yet to get a Nikon equivalent but its on the list



Dave