A Badger Update

Well we haven’t had Badgers for a while now and there is a good reason for that… I loaned my  trail camera to a neighbour and he kept hold of it for quite a long time. I don’t mind, it is fun to see what goes on when you are fast asleep in bed. Anyway the Badgers are not going anywhere….. Well that is what I thought,

In fact they have moved house. They have moved twice already this year and so it is no great cause for alarm but now I have to find them again. Normally that would be easy but the fields have just been cut and the regular paths that Badgers make have pretty well been obscured.

Plus  my trained tracker dog is not always as useful as I make her out to be. In fact I don’t think that she would mind if I called her a “chocolate teapot.”

“You just sit there and I will go and look for the Badgers myself then.”

So starting at the beginning, we got up to the sett and straight away I could see that  it didn’t look very active.

I set the camera up to watch the entrance to the sett and filmed for two nights. The sett is no longer in use.

We did get animals just not using the sett. I baited the area with raisins (very smelly).

I will show you two short clips. The first is of a small unidentified mammal. You may have to go full screen for this one. It is in the entrance to the sett which is the dark area above the number 23 in the time. I can see it’s eyes reflecting the light back. It is taking a chance with the foxes, they are not as daft as they look but they seem to be happy with the raisins.

Next we do get to see a Badger but it has not come from this sett. It is now past two in the morning and this animal is just doing it’s rounds of the fields.

So now we have to find the little monkeys and they could be anywhere, they have quite a large territory and it goes well beyond the farm.

They may even have gone back to the main sett, which is cool. I know where that is but it is a difficult place to film and on public land.

DEFRA are not culling in this area, I know where they are doing their killing now and my animals are safe.

I am hoping that they are still on the farm but Badger setts are pretty easy to see if you know what you are looking for and we haven’t seen a new one yet.

This is a possibility. It doesn’t look like a Badger sett but these hedges are wide and there is plenty of space under here to conceal an entrance. Something has been digging here. (Foxes are usually too lazy to dig when there are Badgers to do the work for them)

If this is Badgers though then there must be a lot more to it under the hedge. In places these hedges are twelve foot wide with a ditch in the centre and bushes and small trees either side. It is an easy place to hide. I don’t really think that this is the place but I will have a word with Fizz tomorrow and if we can’t come up with anything else we will set the camera out here 🙂