Part of our morning walk takes us a long a short section of footpath between a couple of minor roads. The path is heavily wooded, and bound by small schools and farmland.
Over the years, we often see excavations in a bank along onside of the path. The burrows have a wide entrance, fronted by a lot of soil. It is often difficult to ascertain how old the excavations are and whether the burrows are in use.
Although the Memsahib often attributes these burrows to badgers, I've been a bit more skeptical. There are a lot of rabbits in the area. The soil is soft, bordering on sandy, therefore prone to erosion. A small rabbit sized hole can easily be eroded to quite a large hole. The burrow entrances were no more than two or three footsteps from the footpath, making me dubious about them being made by badgers.
Until I saw this...
Lovely, 'fresh' grass and straw scattered outside the front of the hole.
Next morning, we returned with a trail cam, which I set up on the holly tree to the right of this photo. I've been reluctant to put out a trail cam until now due to the lack of cover for the camera from the footpath. Some enterprising oik is bound to steal my trail cam if they spot it. Anyway, apart from it being a little bit painful getting past the holly leaves and briar thorns, this was a perfect spot for a trail cam - if a little close to the sett's entrance.
After a couple of nights out, I retrieved my trail cam to find it wasn't pointing downwards enough. Still, I got this footage of one badger coming out of the sett.
I must admit I a very surprised to see a badger sett so close to a public footpath. Granted, it isn't the most heavily used of paths. In fact it is a rare event for us to encounter anyone on the path on our morning walks. Nevertheless, it is used by pedestrians, cyclists and dogwalkers. Then I read up about badgers and discovered that they do live and dig up setts in close proximity to human habitation - sometimes even in gardens!
My old girl and I are very pleased to have a badger sett; and on our daily morning constitutional to boot.
90% luck, 5% field craft, 5% camera skills.
My 'Inspector Clouseau' investigations (as Catlady said, though I'd prefer Marlow or Sam Spade or Morse, even) has yielded a crucial piece of evidence. One of our badgers is setting up home. I'll start this week's update with this exciting piece of news. Though there has been plenty of other action around our sett this week; which I'll put in follow up posts.
Here's the sequence. Again, I aplogise for a YouTube entry. The mp4 file exceeds the 5MB limit of this forum.
Looks a little empty, but keep your focus on right of photos.
Note badger coming in frame backwards.
It is dragging in bedding.
Now the good bit.
Ta da. Badger setting up home in an old sett.
I'm about to dash out of home, to leg it back to where the sett is, and put out my trail cam, before the heavens open up. Netweather's rainfall radar shows about an hour of light rain. Just enough time to get there and back.
Oh, exciting Angus, look forward to the story unfolding about your Badgers.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I'm still baffled as to why the date stamp on photos and videos are incorrect. The day is correct. The time is correct. But the month and year are not. I did make a special effort to set both correctly, and did not turn the machine off; so no reason why the date should change.
Continuing our saga. A Song Thrush has been knocking about the entrance to the sett for a couple of weeks now. I haven't posted photos or video until now.
Firstly, this is what our Song Thrush has been doing uptil now. Just mooching around looking for interesting invertebrates to eat.
Our Song Thrush decides to live a little dangerously. Odd, considering how wet it has been, and the amount of leaf litter around. Why go into the jaws of death when there is so much safer hunting territory around?
Arrrgh! This may not end well.
Although it survived, my trail cam did not pick it up again. Perhaps next week.
Like a detective story in reverse (i.e. solution an culprit revealed in the opening scenes, with the remainder detailing how the case was solved), here is one of the badgers checking out the sett. A rather wet badger. It rained earlier in the week - thereby sabotaging my efforts to dry out waste decking material, to make it easier to cut into manageable pieces to cart down to our local tip.
Bit of scent marking either to claim this territory or leaving a calling card.
I just realised that I have to retrieve my trail cam, tomorrow. Weather permitting, that is. Therefore, I need to complete this week's update.
First, we'll start with a scared badger, bolting back into its sett.
I have no idea what spooked it.
My trail cam lots of videos and photos of this brown rat, which also decided to live dangerously.
I have noticed that our badger is a bit of a flea bag. It spends ages giving itself a good scratch.
A fox passed by several times. Sometimes quite quickly, other times more sedately.
Our badger can be quite cautious when emerging from its sett. Not surprising seeing as the sett is about ten feet from a footpath.
Again, very pleased to get video of badger squeezing into sett.
This surprised me a bit. Our badger exiting its sett when light. I can be walking along this stretch of path at this time in the morning. I could also be retrieving my trail cam at this time, but do not want to disturb the badger. Hmmm, a paradox - to pick up or not to pick up trail cam, that is the question.
That nosy fox again.
I'm not sure what my trail cam is going to get over this past week. The evening I put it out, storm Bert came through. The memsahib and I did walk past the sett the next morning (keep an eye out for potential falling trees - it was blowy), and I noticed my trail cam still attached to tree and pointing down. The only problem is, I prop the top back of the trail cam with a piece of branch to get it to point downwards toward the sett. I'm worried the branch might get dislodged a bit (due to tree swaying in high winds), and so disturb the orientation of my trail cam.
To compound matters, it rained and rained and rained, stopped for a day or two before raining and raining yet again.
It was rain and rain and rain that killed our trail; cam Angus keep meaning to get a new one (s)
I may have solved mystery of wrong month and year on timestamp. When setting the date and time, it appears I have to set every value (day, month, year, hour, minute) for my trail cam to accept any changes. Previously, I've set year and month only, then pressed the menu button. Most systems will accept any modifications. Not my trail cam, it appears.
Storm Bert and the other one, did their worst. My heart sank when I went to pick up my trail cam, this morning. My supporting bit of branch (which I jammed between trail cam and tree to get the former to point at the sett's mouth) had fallen off. I reset the date, reset the camera with piece of branch, swapped SD cards (my new strategy), and went home not expecting much.
Was I wrong! OK, the fierce wind of storm Bert did blow vegetation around, plus this pesky piece of bramble (which swayed in front of my trail cam) causing my trail cam to trigger resulting in a lot photos and videos full of swaying vegetation. However, winds died down, and much to my surprise my trail cam was still aimed at the mouth of the sett!
Firstly, no further sightings of the brown rat. However, I have read that it is not unusual for brown rats and badgers to share a sett; especially the more bigger ones.
Secondly, the sett appears still to be occupied. Though, I am not sure it is a main sett or a satellite sett. Further, it is possible that the badgers may be using the sett to get from, say, the footpath to the field on the other side of a boundary fence lining the footpath. The only way to do confirm whether the sett is occupied is to stick a camera in it. I'm not doing so partly as I do not have a suitable camera but mainly as to do so might be highly illegal as I would be disturbing the badgers.
Anyway, enough waffle. This is the biggest surprise of the week.
A very handsome reynard.
Note the timestamp.
A few seconds later...
Apparently, foxes and badgers have been known to share setts; particularly the bigger ones. The sharing arrangement is an uneasy one, and badgers may drive any foxes away; mainly, it appears, because badgers detest the smell of fox urine and their detritus (e.g. kills) they leave around a sett chamber. Sort of like university students sharing a house with an older couple or family.
There are further photos and videos of the badger or badgers, which I may post. It does get a bit boring after a while. I am leaving my trail cam out (and may even put another one out pointing up and down an animal thoroughfare) as it is revealing some fascinating behaviour around a sett which we've never seen before. I don't think I've seen footage of foxes and rats in a badger sett from any TV programme. Can't say I've seen such on Spring/Autumn/Winter watch - though I tend not to watch them any more; can't stand the two main presenters.
Thank you so much,pleased you sorted your Time Stamps CHOL:):
)How fascinating to see the different residents,and will be interesting to see their trails.
Your work is certainly revealing exciting things. Well done in getting the date and time set. What will we see next I wonder?
Catlady and I are sleuths extraordinaire. There are definitely at least two badgers. Here is photographic evidence.
As Catlady pointed out, the facial markings are different.
I've had more opportunity to review various videos and photos, which reveals size and behavioural difference.
The badger I've named 747, appears bigger and bulkier than the one I've named itchy. It also appears to be more confident than itchy, and seems to just waft by the sett after taking the most perfunctory interest in it.. However, there may actually be three badgers, as one bigger, bulkier badger does enter the sett.
The badger I've named itchy seems to have a flea problem. It is also scratching itself. It is also a lot more nervous than 747. Itchy appears to be the resident badger.
Now the video evidence.
Here is 747 entering the sett. Notice that it is a bit of a squeeze for the feller.
By contrast, here is Itchy's more svelte ingress to the sett.
This is typical behaviour of a badger named 747. There may be more than one badger of similar size. Our 747 badger enters the sett area, has a sniff, then wanders off in disdain.
I guess more facial photos are required to see if there are at least two or more bulky badgers.
Notice that the bulky badger has been quite confident in its movements. Itchy, by contrast, is rather nervous. We've seen this in other videos.
This next video shows Itchy doing what caused me to name it itchy i.e. having a good scratch.
I decided to swap SD cards in my trail cam today. For why? Tomorrow is when storm Darragh ploughs into us. Wind gusts up to 57mph are expected - quite a blow. There are lots of older, infirm trees lining our walking route, any one of which could block our path completely should it fall down. Hence, I decided to swap SD cards today, rather than tomorrow - when we'll have the added delight of yet more rain to accompany the winds.
One slight snag. When I swapped SD cards, my trail cam informed me the batteries have run out of charge; before the thing turned itself off. Hmmm, what to do? I could go back today and change batteries - which I might do after my swim. Or I could take a call tomorrow morning, and decide if we should risk walking. We've walked loads of times with the wind gusting into the high 40s, but not high 50s. Should be interesting.
Good luck and keep safe