Badger

 

This badger was foraging for food just after 11.00 pm on a cold winters night in Laois at Irish Photography Hides.  Earlier in the evening we walked through a muddy puddly field to arrive at a hide made from pallets, at the edge of forestry land.  Waiting for nearly 5 hours is very cold and dark required a lot of patience. Luckily there was a security light which would trigger with movement.  We cursed a rat for a few false alarms.  After the badger(s) arrived and settled we were advised to connect a car battery to led lights to provide some lighting in the area to help get better photos.

This photo was taken handheld, with a shutter speed of 1/320 second.  The 100-500 mm was only zoomed just over 220 mm which had an open aperture of f/5.  The ISO was 6400.  Because the white patches on the face and snout of the badger often lack detail through over exposure I set the exposure compensation to -0.7 step.