Spotlight on: badgers

Of all the Make Your Nature Count species we'll be introducing this week, badgers are probably one of the most iconic, and yet their shy, nocturnal habits mean they're rarely seen.

An underground metropolis

These enigmatic and elusive animals are social creatures and live together in a network of underground tunnels, known as a sett.

Badgers use their strong claws to dig these setts, which consist of a series of interlocking passages and nest chambers – they even have special toilet areas outside.

Badgers are very house proud, and every now and then they will spring-clean their sett by throwing out old bedding material and dragging in fresh new vegetation.

You can often see this discarded bedding strewn around, close to the entrance to a sett – not only does this keep the sett spick-and-span inside, it also gives us humans a handy clue as to whether a sett is active.

Badgers inherit setts from their parents, and expand and add to them over time – so in some cases huge tunnel systems can be centuries old. One sett was found to have twelve entrances and tunnels totalling more than 300 metres – a study estimated that the badgers had moved 25 tonnes of soil to create the network! Blimey!

Worms, worms and more worms!

Believe it or not, the vast majority of a badger’s diet is made up of earthworms – they can eat up to 200 a night!

Badgers are omnivores though, so they also supplement all those worms with other food such as insects, small mammals, berries, roots and bulbs that they sniff out with their incredibly powerful sense of smell (it’s about 700 hundred times better than ours!).

Badgers are also particularly fond of peanuts, so if you think you have badgers in your area and would like to tempt them into your garden, peanuts are a pretty good incentive!


Tips for badger watching

If you’d like to see badgers, now is a great time as they tend to emerge from their setts before dusk between May and August – you might even get the chance to see young cubs playing rough-and-tumble at this time of year too.

Badgers often leave clues behind them that give away their presence, so if you suspect badgers are visiting your garden or somewhere nearby, be on the look out for tufts of fur that have snagged on fences and bushes.

Roll the hair between your fingers - if it rolls smoothly it'll probably belong to something like a rabbit, but if it feels rough and bumpy you're in luck! Badger fur is oval rather than round in cross-section, giving it a distincly ridged feel.

Another tell tale sign left by badgers is small scrapes and holes in lawns and short grass, left behind where they've snuffled and scrabbled for worms.

If you're not lucky enough to have badgers visiting your garden, the easiest way to see them in the wild is to go along to an organised badger watch. Try contacting your local badger group to find out what events are running in your area.

Read these tips before you go and you'll stand a much better chance of seeing these amazing mammals up close (hint: go easy on the perfume or aftershave!).