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.
Thanks all. I'm glad you're enjoying this. I'm having fun, especially observing all the behaviours.
In this posts, we'll switch over to the new badger sett on a byroad. Identified by the Binfield badger group as an outlier, my trail cam has not spotted badgers as yet. What it has filmed and photographed are foxes, common birds (e.g. Robins, Song Thrush, Woodpigeons, etc), a brown rat and a cat.
Here's the first of the foxes. It has a gammy leg. This sequence occurred during the first week I stationed a trail cam in this position. The sett entrance is underneath the barbed wire and post to the right of this photo. This will be the first time the fox has encountered my trail cam.
Why is it so nervous? Well, I would be if I suddenly saw this glaring at me on a dark night.
This trail cam (Bargarbou make) is not either 'low glow' or 'no glow'. Two red lights shine brightly when it switches to night vision (i.e. Infrared) photography or filming.
Later on, the fox's gammy leg is very apparent.
Though I think it is beginning to heal, as this later video sort of shows.
Fox number two seems a sturdier fellow or lass, with a very bushy tail. I noticed that the foxes tended to favour squeezing under the barbed wire to get to a field on the other side of the fence.
The Binfield badger group said it was OK to help badgers along during severe weather by leaving tidbits in or near a sett. This did surprise me. They suggested items like dog biscuits, peanuts, eggs, etc. You can't go mad with this, giving lots of food, but a little during bad weather or (as film makers do) an initial offering (bait) to persuade animals to visit a site is fine.
I will not be doing this at our setts. Dog biscuits will attract the attention of the large number of dogs passing both setts. I might get away with eggs, but suspect foxes will snaffle them - as well as any dog biscuits. While peanuts will be eaten by various birds and this...
Yep, a brown rat. Large ***.
It appeared on a number of videos. They are all around the area, some of which is still farmland - but likely not for much longer. I know for a fact the blighters make their way along a drainage ditch and bit of woodland to our garden and our neighbour's. My cat, possibly other creatures, and traps I put out have accounted for at least 15 of them over the course of a year.
I'm hoping this feller will dispatch the rat. My cat almost got one last week. I saw her pounce on the rat, but it was a little too quick and got away. I did find a dead rat a few days later, but reckoned my break back trap got it.
This cat will feature in another video!
Again, some very interesting footage, shall look forward to the cats visits,
Agree with you re the feeding( or should I say non feeding).
Thanks again so pleased you take so much time to share.