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.
Really nice to see Angus and good background info I guess most folks don't even notice it, which is no bad thing
Thanks, Scozmos.
I forgot to say about the grass/straw...badgers clear out their setts, every now and again. I've seen videos of them backing out of their setts, pulling out stale bedding and dumping it.
Moving on. First day I put out my trial cam, I placed it too high up the Holly trunk and not pointing down sufficiently. I returned later in the day to place my trail cam lower down. The badger or badgers took a keen interest in it. First a still for those who do not like videos.
Now the video
Next action is to work out how many badgers are using this sett.
The sett is placed along an animal highway, at a convenient position for them to cross from the footpath to a fence leading to farmland. My trail cam caught a Roe deer
This 'Wild' animal.
And a bank vole. It is more obvious in the video my trail cam took, but only just. Hence why I've posted a blob photo.
Looks either like some creature from Star Wars - the one's with the glowing eyes or a scene more suited to All hallows eve.