Fox update

The foxes are still regular visitors collecting mouthfulls of biscuits for their youngsters.

They arrive after dark so I prefer to shoot in mono, I think I get better resolution in the photo's.

The light varies a bit because o passing cars but this does not seem to upset the foxes.

In fact most of the time passing cars are ignored.

Well most of the time. I am now patiently waiting for the family to come to dinner.
 

Fox pair

This is the pair of foxes that come to dinner most evenings. On the left is Mum and on the right is Junior. Junior has been around for several years and was only a few months old when he first appeared. Mum has had young in the past few months  and I am not yet discovered whether Junior is the Dad.

Mum is quite used to me and when I appear at my window she is not bothered and will look and then carry on with whatever she is doing. I know there are youngsters somewhere as Mum often runs off with a mouthful of biscuits, then comes back later for more.

Both of these pictures were taken after dark and lit by a street lamp some 10m away.
 

Getting better

With my night photography I am now using colour as I am now mastering the controls better. These pictures show the fox behind the hedge about 10m away from a street lamp. This is the scene I see through the viewer but see nothing but shadows with the naked eye.

If the subject is in a good position there is not much difference to the norm. The only problem is the high grain of the picture but for the record I cannot fault it.

Mono is good and so easy to get good results. These pictures were taken after mid-night with just the light of a near-by street lamp.  These were taken at 1/8sec. at 256000asa. Its a different world.
 

Badgers the boss

Last night I heard a scuffling outside my bedroom window, as the animals are often there during the night I turned over and went back to sleep.

When I checked the I/R camera in the morning it contained several pictures which were blurred. It was obvious there had been a scuffle between the animals. Whetther it was between a fox and badger or another badger was on the scene and it was between them. These are the only pictures. I'm not sure that there are two badgers squabbling or one badger arguing with a fox.
 

Tactical change

Trying new settings on my camera's I found that a setting of 25600 asa. Giving it a try I found that it was quite feasable to use in very low light. The above photo was taken after dark with a shutter speed of around one second. The light source was a street lamp some 10m away. In the view finder the fox appeared as dark shadow at a distance of 35m.

Having that success I tried mono and was even more impressed. Again it was at the bottom of the garden and taken through my bedroom window

I saw this shadow and put the camera to my eye and it revealed a hedgehog, again it was about 30m away. I was using a 450mm lens for these shots.

I find this discovery of the capabilities of my cameras are all due to lockdown. I'm happy that I can carry on photographing wildlife without leaving my bedroom.