Gone a bit nuts?!
Residential volunteers Susannah Fleiss and Sarah Harris blog about their experience ‘badgering’ the locals...
On arrival if you had asked what we wanted to see or experience during the stay here the answer would have been ‘everything’! One of the special encounters experienced is with the badgers who live in a large sett close to the Starnafin cottage.
Having tried several times, both early in the morning and late at night, sitting quietly downwind of various reserve setts, we had not struck lucky with a badger sighting. On asking for advice, one suggestion was to entice them out using bait in the form of peanuts. This led to a nightly ritual of leaving a badger picnic consisting of a trail of peanuts from the numerous active entrances (any with loose sand surrounding the holes), through their runs (tracks created by paws running up and down the same routes) leading to a pile of nutty treats! Giving badgers a nightly picnic was certainly a new one on us! However, the plan was a hugely successful one; on the first night alone, we got five sightings. We crept around, sneaking up on setts and spying in, finally to be rewarded by explorative critters snuffling around to find the source of the nutty odours – causing two very excitable volunteers! However, we managed to stay silent, on one occasion even ending up eye-eye and less than 1 meter from a badger popping his head out of his hole.
After this initial success, we caught one of their nightly feasts on record using the reserve’s wonderful infrared-capable trail camera resulting in some great shots and footage:
The badgers had other ideas however; they had sussed out our routine! The baiting had been occurring in the afternoon in broad daylight, with the camera going out later. On going out to set up the camera on the third night, all of the bait had already been pic-nicked! Comedy ensued with much fumbling around in dark when we then attempted to re-bait the sett, however this did the trick and our efforts were rewarded when, on getting the camera in the following morning, we were greeted by a memory card full of footage.
Next challenge is to film foxes and otters – watch this space!
It’s not only badgers that ‘sett’ off the camera!
Picnicking on scattered peanuts!
Blog by Vicky Anderson and Sarah Harris