I went to prairies with the goal of seeing and photographing animals I had never seen in the wild before. The list was longer than I care to admit but included burrowing owls, prairie dogs and badgers. While I knew the first two would be very easy to find, badgers were suppose to be a bit harder.  Little did I know in grand fashion I would check all three off the list in one morning!

The first part of the morning we were treated to a beautiful sunrise while photographing a great horned owl, burrowing owls and later on prairie dogs as they woke up and left their burrows to eat. By about 11am we decided to drive down the road to see some other sights but we didn’t get far. Within about 15 minutes we pulled into a parking area next to a prairie dog colony and lo and behold a badger was resting at the entrance of a burrow!! Over the next several hours we were treated to amazing scenes of a badger mom and her daughter that included them hunting prairie dogs in broad daylight!  But that story and the accompanying photos are for a different post! This is merely an introduction!

Here the daughter looks around her surroundings after helping to excavate a prairie dog burrow.

Badger looking back WM

A true sign that she was not the least bit concerned about me and my clicking camera was when she started to play right in front of me! She rolled around in the grass, jumped up in the air and snapped at invisible objects!

Badger baby mouth open WM

At one point she circled around the burrow and came within 10 feet of me before getting distracted by a leopard frog that leaped out in front of her. She briefly chased after it before the next distraction happened; a prairie dog not too far away. With her tail raised up in the air she sprinted off towards it as it squeaked an alarm call and vanished down the burrow.

Badger side lighting WM

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the badger extravaganza that day, so stay tuned for more including the story and rarely seen photos of them hunting prairie dogs!