All in the Badger Family

 

The badger is a member of the weasel family. There are eleven different species of badgers that are divided into three subfamilies, the Eurasian badger, the American badger, and the ratel or honey badger. The honey badger is found through out much of Africa and in a few places in southern Asia. The American badger is only found in North America. There are no badgers that are native to South America, or Australia

The American badger is found through out the western and central portions of North America. They live in dens that they dig with their long sharp claws. Grasslands and open prairie with are their preferred habitat especially those with sandy soil which is easier to dig in. The American badger is an omnivore but primarily eats pocket gophers, ground squirrels, marmots, prairie dogs, other rodents, burrowing owls and other ground nesting birds, amphibians, lizards, insects, carrion and some vegetable matter. Badgers are typically solitary except during the mating season in late summer. Like bears, badgers have a delayed pregnancy. Pregnancy usually occurs between December and February. The kits are born in March or April with a litter consisting of 1 to 5 kits. The kits are born blind and helpless. It takes about 4 to 6 weeks for their eyes to open and another week after before they begin to emerge from the den. It was May when I photographed this female with her 4 kit out at Yellowstone. With in a month or two after these pictures where taken the young will have left to go out on their own.  

Calendar Pics from Yellowstone

The calendar that I put together each year is like a compilation of the best pictures that Michelle and I took during that year. The only rule is that the picture had to be taken in the year prior to when the calendar was created, although Michelle also has an unofficial rule prohibiting me from including a lot of bugs. Since we usually spend our vacation each year out shooting pics it stands to reason that quite a few pics in the calendar come from vacation shots. In 2009 we traveled to Yellowstone in the spring and 5 of the 14 calendar pics were taken during the trip.

The osprey is fascinating bird. These diurnal raptors were at one time called a fishing hawk however they are not a member of the hawk family. The osprey is in a family by itself mostly because of their unique feet. Osprey have 4 toes which are all an equal length, the toes of other raptors differ in length. They are also the only raptor, other then owls whose outside toe is reversible, allowing it to face forward or back. We photographed this osprey near its nest outside of West Yellowstone.

For the past two calendars, 2009 and 2010, we have featured a picture of an American kestrel. It is possible that it is the same kestrel as we have photographed it in nearly the same location in the Lamar Valley each year. These kestrel pics are some of the best kestrel pics that we have taken mostly due to the natural surrounding in the background, most of the other kestrel pics that I have taken are when they are on electrical lines.

Pretty much every year that we have gone to Yellowstone in the spring we have been fortunate enough to be able to get good pics of grizzly bear. When we have gone to Yellowstone in the fall we have never spotted any grizzly so if you are looking to photograph grizzly in Yellowstone I recommend that you visit in the spring time. We photographed this fellow digging up ground squirrels for breakfast along the road to Mammoth.

The other real cool thing about Yellowstone in the spring is the opportunity, if you are patient and lucky, to get a view of all of the new life. We have photographed red fox in Yellowstone several times over the years but we had always hoped to spot a den so that we could get pictures of the pups. This year, thanks to a tip from another photographer, we got our wish. We took a half a day to travel out to the east entrance where a mother fox had set up her den under the stairs of an old building. Because of their proximity to humans they did not seem to mind people much, even pesky photographers, which was good for us but probably not so good for them.

The other new baby pics in the 2010 calendar were of a badger with kits. We waited a total of about six hours to get the shots, Michelle was smart and stayed in the car reading while I sat out in the middle of a field in the Lamar Valley with a bunch of other photographers, but it was certainly worth the wait. She had four kits that she finally brought out of the den for us all to see. Unfortunately I never was able to get a good shot of all four kits facing the camera so I decided on this one with mom and one of the kids.

Yellowstone Badger

Another treat that we had on this years Yellowstone trip was the opportunity to photograph a badger. On Friday evening, as we were heading out of the Lamar Valley, we spotted quite a few cars at a pull out that were accompanied by a number of people with large lenses. It was near to where we had spotted a grizzly on our first day in the park, so we stopped and asked what everyone was looking at. It turned out to be a badger that was digging in the sage.

I found a parking spot and grabbed my camera. We had seen a badger in Yellowstone a few years ago, but it was from a distance as it was running across the Lamar Valley and we were only able to get one distant pic. This time we were able to get fairly close.

The badger was using its long sharp claws to dig under the sage unaware, or if he was aware he did not seem to care, of over 12 photographers slowly creeping towards him. When he finally looked up there was an eruption of shutters going off as everyone took advantage of the opportunity.

All the attention was too much for the badger and he scurried off across the field. It was fun to watch him run, his shape and gait reminded me of a wiener dog and I am not sure what was up with his little puff ball tail.