European Badger Hide Photography

 

Important

The Badgers are undoubtedly one of the UK’s most popular and best-loved wild mammals. They are primarily nocturnal and generally shy, and they are usually quite difficult to see. The badgers are very close and great shots of these iconic mammals are possible. The badgers come in after dark but under nine floodlights.

The photographer needs to have patience in this hide as the badgers can come at any time, sometimes a long wait is needed before they appear. You should be prepared to be in the hide for around six to eight hours 

The badgers have an acute sense of smell and hearing they are less than 20 metres away, and strict silence is necessary to get your images.

If you are bringing food and drink please be sure that the food is in containers and not in packets that rustle e.g. crisps and biscuits, and mobile phones should be switched off.

Please note that this is a hide rental. We will talk through settings etc on arrival but you will be in the hide by yourself.

The typical length of the workshop is six hours and starts after dark, from the begining of February to the end of December. Start times vary and you can stay in the hide for as long as you like. Please note waiting for the badgers to show can be a lengthy and frustrating period.

Badgers are nocturnal: they sleep during the day and are active at night. They emerge from their sett in the evening to play, socialise and forage. Unfortunately for the photographer, they don’t come out at the same time every time.

Naturalists universally agree that badgers have an acute sense of smell, pretty good hearing and rather poor vision.

 

Eyesight

The badger’s eyes are quite small, and its eyesight is not particularly good. Also, like many other animals, badgers cannot see anything in colour, only black, grey and white. Whilst they cannot see details very well, they can make out shapes, and movements.

 

Sense of Smell

It is thought that the badger’s sense of smell is 700 to 800 times better than ours!”. The sense of smell in badgers is extraordinarily well developed and is undoubtedly their most important sense

Hearing

Badgers also have acute hearing, they can pick up the smallest of sounds. They can even hear worms as they dig towards the ground surface in the rain

 

Equipment

The Badgers will come very close on this workshop so, in terms of lens recommendations, anywhere between 200mm, 300mm, and 400mm lenses are all useful, 70 – 200 mm and 100 – 400 mm, 500 mm, 150 – 600mm zoom lenses are all very good. A tripod is essential for supporting your lens in this hide.

Mirror-less micro four-thirds cameras are well suited to this workshop,

See more images in my Badger Gallery Badger Gallery 

 

  Cost

One Photographer – £75

Two and Three Photographers – £65 per person

Gift Vouchers available

 

In a Badger “no show” event, you will be offered another date free of charge.

Please pay by BACs Transfer details below  

Santander  

Account Name – Mr AR McCombe

Account – No 35735528

Sort Code – 09 01 27

 

Testimonials

Hi Ron
We had an Excellent evening Hazel and I, we had 3 visits up until midnight with up to 4 badgers showing,  Hazel was tired so left just after midnight
We will definitely return when we are on our highland visits, great set-up
Looking at our hundreds of shots it looks like we have some crackers
Thanks again to you and your wife and we will visit again
Chris / Hazel Thorpe

Morning Ron

Wow, another fantastic night at your hide Ron. We waited roughly half an hour for the first badger to appear and give or take a few 20 minute spells we had badger visitors all night. I sat and watched for a while without camera. It would have been worth the visit just to watch them. 

They are truly amazing creatures.  Not sure they’ll manage to replace the fox as my favourite mammal, but they’re pushing hard now. Keep up the great work supporting them. 

Will see you again at the end of the month. Will be in touch nearer the time to see if I can maybe spend the afternoon in the bird hide if available. 

Kind regards

Richard and Ross Lyall…….. Miidlothian – 7th April 2023 

 

Hi Ron

Hi Ron,
I hope you are both well.
I just wanted to thank you both for another wonderful night taking photographs of the badgers.  My friend Paula said it was the best present she’s ever had!

When they appeared they seemed to be sniffing the air quite a bit but we soon realised that there were other badgers coming from behind the hide, four in total, which were staying out of shot and wandering along the hedgerow to the left.

We got some lovely shots but just as we were starting to pack up at 2.30 am out they came again and stayed for about an hour. We had the same two badgers appear throughout the night, one with a scar above its eye and the other with a bite out its the backside, there was a third badger that popped its head through the hedge but it stayed into the back.

Regards

Linda McDermott October 2021

Hi Ron 

Really happy to visit your hide last night, and really appreciate your help and tips. Great set-up and lots of visits during our visit. All the best and hope to catch up at one of your  other workshops

David Williams …………South Wales

Ron

Fantastic few hours in the Badger hide last night. What a terrific set-up you have Ron, thanks for all your advice and direction. The great layout you have developed really put the creatures at ease – and the photographers.

William Stuart……. Livingston

Good morning Ron

Thank you to you and your wife for the warm welcome last night, tips on camera settings and explaining the set-up of the badger shoot which is brilliant and did not disappoint.

The first badger appeared at 11:20, stayed for about 15 minutes, eating like it hadn’t been fed in weeks!

Next, a group of 3 that eventually raised their snouts at the same time give two great group shots. These stayed for a while. All coming and going through the back hedge.

The young, wet muddy one returned on its own, several times and had a good dig around. Not shy at all and offering some great photo opportunities.

A larger, very clean looking but more wary badger next. This one got spooked and ran off at speed to the corner behind the bird hide.

There were solo appearances up until 01:05. We’re not sure how many individual badgers we saw, some had clear identifying marks. We will check when we get home.

We hung on until 01:50 then packed up, surprised to see how much food was still left. No other sightings, though the owls were audible.

Thank you again for such a great set-up, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Very best wishes,
Irena and Olly

Hi Ron,

Thanks for last night and the effort you have gone to provide such a wonderful opportunity. We tried to leave silently so the hide wasn’t as neat as I would have liked to leave it.

Nicky borrowed my D800 and the 150-600 instead of his more standard kit and was extremely delighted with his results, annoyingly his seem a little better than mine. (I was using a D500 with a good 70-300). I’m amazed at the standard of our discards! Just a little motion blur on the snout and in the bin it goes.

I’ll be in touch shortly as we would like to rebook and possibly do your woodland birds hide the afternoon before.

Mark……….

Ron,

Just wanted to say thanks for having me…..I had a great night just sat waiting, even the anticipation was enjoyable. You have a great set-up in both woodland birds and badger hides. I got some greats shots of the badgers as they tipped up. Hopefully, I will get back later in the year for another workshop and we can spend a bit of time over a coffee or two.

Take Care Gaz……. Gary Wilson

Joe Gilhooley………..

Ron

Just wanted to say thank you so much for setting us up last night in the hide and allowing us to use your amazing set-up, which is all the more impressive for being comfortably outside your front window!

As you were no doubt aware, the first appearance was getting on towards 9.30, when suddenly a very burly badger appeared from the end of the garden close to the woods.  Very wet front legs so look like he’d been doing some paddling.  He absolutely mowed in like Desperate Dan at the food on the bigger logs to our left and was there for quite a while.  After he trundled back off the way he’d come, another, very much more tentative one quietly entered stage left. Potentially 6 individuals came in though we will need to scrutinise the pictures carefully to see if that’s really the case or if any had been in and returned.

You’ve done a fantastic job on the setup, which must have taken ages, gaining their confidence and making them comfortable with the sounds of cameras and flashes of light.  Has to rate as one of, if not the best Christmas present we’ve ever had, and have told the young ones how much we appreciated it – and will spread the word, you can be sure.

Many thanks again for sharing the fruits of your labours with us.  It was a great experience.

Alan Drummond, Earlston …………………..