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.
Great stuff Angus
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Hah, the 'wonderful' British weather. We've had it all this past week: heavy rain, strong winds, higher than average temperatures followed by the mercury plummeting to -8C around Wokingham.
Rather a lot of activity around the badger sett. A wood/field mouse scurrying around plenty. Robins, Blackbirds, badgers and two foxes - possibly vixens looking for a den.
There is a possibility that we now have a third badger - Scrawny tail. Hard to tell, as it might be Itchy having a bad tail day. Aftr a couple of weeks of badgers not entering the sett, we finally see one doing just that.
I notified the Binfield Badger group about this sett; giving them OS and what three words coordinates, plus told them best place to park. It was a sett they were unaware of, so dispatched a couple of members on Saturday week to conduct a survey. They confirm it was an active sett, thereby subject to protection, and they also found a further four setts. Two I've located: one on the footpath (I will not place a trail cam on this one as it is quite exposed), and another one on a byway - which I have put a trail cam on as the camera is hidden from the byway by a large bush. The badger group asked if I could monitor the setts for several months; which I will do so as it is quite fascinating.
The stars of the show in this update are two foxes - I assume vixens. Two very fine specimens - of which one appears to be hunting for a den. One aspect I've never heard of is the funny 'rumbling' noises they make. Quite surprising.
Firstly, we'll start off with videos from my Bargarbou trail cam. I've afraid the videos glitch - think Wreck It Ralph. I think (hope) this glitching is due to the rather old SD card I had to use. I think the card has slow write speeds, which caused the trail cam to pause whilst writing data, thus causing the glitches. I have a more modern SD card (32GB Scandisk) which should solve the glitching - I hope.
If you listen very carefully, you can hear a male Tawny owl in a couple of the clips.
I get the definite impression that one fox is subservient to the other.
Switching to the GardePro. I had swapped the trail cams around as I discovered the Bargarbou triail cam is not low/no glow. It has two LED looking things that light up bright red for night/low light shots. This makes it very visible from the footpath. The GardePro, by contrast, is no glow.
You might be able to hear the odd fox noise in this one.
-5C was cold, but it got even colder on the 11/01/2025
You can correlate the activity between the two trail cams. They wont match exactly, partly due to the field of view. One camera can see the other can't due to the directions they point in. They then pause for a while (tens seconds or so) after videoing - so will capture slightly differing action.
You can see how the infrared from the Brgarbou really lights up the area.
Badgers and mice to follow in next update.
Thanks again Angus,so very interesting.
Am pleased Badger Group, appreciate your assistance, and hope it will increase your enjoyment in being able to assist each other., and we get to see some wonderful insights.
Thank you again.
Great Angus, very interesting to follow and good that the Badger group gave you on board, thanks