SNAPSHOT

Professional photographer and wildlife biologist John Ashley set out to take what he calls a “conservation photograph” of a blackfooted ferret. “I wanted an image that would help generate public interest in this rarest of Montana’s native mammals,” says Ashley, a longtime resident. “The challenge is that black-footed ferrets are nocturnal, so no one ever sees them. People are far less inclined to protect a species they never see.”

To capture an image of a ferret in its natural nighttime surroundings, Ashley spent nine nights in below-freezing temperatures over a period of several months at UL Bend National Wildlife Refuge, 50 miles south of Malta. The image shown here, taken late one night in April, combines a shot of a curious ferret taken at high speed using a flash and a remote shutter release; a long-exposure (12-second) shot to capture the Milky Way in the background; and a third shot in which the photographer “painted” the mound around the burrow with the light of his headlamp. The sequence with three different settings was made over a span of about 45 seconds, without moving the tripod. “What you see here is what your eyes would see if you were watching a ferret after midnight in an eastern Montana prairie where they live,” Ashley says. n