Diary 2008 Page Four


 

1st May

I am almost up to date with re-installing the broken software.  I have been watching my little female BT as she incubates the eggs but I got quite concerned this morning by her prolonged absence.  I started to capture some video of the eggs just after she had left.  I assumed she would be back fairly quickly.  In fact it was around eight minutes before she returned.  Since then, she has been out several times for quite long periods.

When I went to feed the birds with their seed which I keep in the coal bunker, I was a little surprised to find that the trapdoor at the front for shovelling the coal had been raised.  When I lifted the lid, it was quite obvious what had occurred.  The plastic bucket of peanuts had been tipped on its side and there were very few nuts left.  The badgers had clearly smelled the nuts and managed to open the trapdoor and pig-out on my bird food!  I shall have to adopt an alternative plan, I think!  I have added a short video which shows the ten eggs and her returning to incubate them.  Click the icon. 

I have received an email from my cyber-buddy and friend John T.  who had a very rare 'visitor' in his lounge.  He wrote that he doesn't know how it got in but managed to persuade it to leave through the French windows.  He took these super pictures of the intruder before it flew to freedom.  Here are his photos.  If you click on any one, it will open a window for a larger version. The last two are cropped from the ones above them.
4th May (Jedi Day)

It has been very quiet in the nestbox since incubation started.  I am still concerned about the lengthy periods that she goes walkabout.  On Friday, I saw her leave at 7.38 am and at 7.41 the male arrived, found the box empty and left and she didn't return until 7.47.  I'm sure that the eggs would get quite cool over that nine minutes.  Here is a picture of her on the nest.  If you click on it, it will open a video window to show her twittering away to her mate in the hawthorn bush. As he doesn't come to visit, she does a little cleaning up and settles again.  I have edited some of the silent passages from the original to save space.

Also on Friday, I went to the coal bunker where I keep the bird feed and found that the badgers had managed to lift the hatch on the front again and finished the peanuts.  This was in spite of my effort to block them by putting some large, heavy pots in front of the door.  I set up a camera to record them on Friday night.  I managed to get some video but the picture quality was very poor.  However we we were able to see that the badger was very determined and lay on its side to help lift the flap with its claws.  It took several minutes and he was becoming more agitated and frustrated.  Eventually, he managed to raise it enough to enable him to scoop the nuts out with a paw.

Tonight, I am hoping to re-fix the camera in a different position to see if I can get better pictures.  I was a little surprised that they had managed to raise the hatch, anyway because the handle had broken off when I last tried to close it on Friday night.  If I do get some decent video, I will put the camera inside the bunker tomorrow so that we can see the view from inside, as well.  Below are some pictures of the raid on the bunker from Friday morning. Click a picture for larger versions.


The bunker after the raid
The heavy pots to protect the hatch
Inside the bunker
5th May

I moved the camera last night and started it up at around 10.00pm.  I saw that the hatch was up this morning so watched the video and found that a badger had arrived, opened the hatch and stuck its head inside to get the peanuts that I had left for it.  In taking them, it also managed to bend the runners that guide the hatch.  It shows how strong and how determined they can be!  Unfortunately, he was clearly disturbed before he managed to eat all of the bait but the tape ran out before he, or another one, returned to clean up.

There was also another night-visitor.  It arrived, stayed for almost 20 minutes and then left the same way as it came in. I'll let you watch the short video to see what it was, though.  See the video links below

The picture shows the damaged runner for the hatch.  There is a larger version if you click on it.                   

Below are links to the videos.  The first one is a low resolution version of the badger attacking the bunker. The second one was the other night visitor.  I have removed the link to the YouTube video as I was very disappointed with the quality.  I uploaded a file that was a 320 megabyte, high resolution file and it has been converted to a poor substitute.
I have since found a tutorial on how to submit files in a better format.  Once that is done, I shall provide links


Badger raider
Better version of badger raider
Other visitor

I have just set up the camera inside the bunker and hope to catch pictures of the raider in the morning.
 

8th May

The experiment with the camera inside the bunker was a huge success.  I have some amazing video of the visits of several badgers.  It has taken a great deal of time to make several edits of the different visits.  I had to make three versions of each clip.  A full version will be sent to the Welsh BBC Wildlife presenter, Iolo Williams.  He visited us last year for their Welsh Spring Safari programme and our badgers, fox and bluetits featured in one of the episodes.  A shorter version was edited for posting on Youtube and the third version will be linked to the pictures below.
The first clip shows the first visit.  A badger arrives and opens the hatch using a combination of claw; paw and nose!  Having got the hatch up, he started scoffing the peanuts.  The hatch remained stuck open.  After a short while, another badger arrived.  We have christened this one Bully-Boy Billy.  He's the one that will lie on the food to prevent any others getting a share.  He charged in and shut the first badger out.  At times, there were two heads visible inside the box.  B-B Billy managed to make himself so wide that the first badger had to give way.

The second clip shows a badger arrive and take a look around.  As he doesn't find any peanuts, he leaves.

Whilst we watched these clips for the first time, we realised that there could be a problem if the hatch were to shut whilst a badger was inside.  As it was up when I looked in the morning, we assumed that it hadn't shut on a visitor.  We were wrong!  The third video shows a short, edited version of what happened when a badger entered and the door shut behind it.  In its efforts to lift the hatch again it managed to knock the camera over.  He is seen to rear on his hind legs to see if there was a way out higher up.  When he landed, he knocked the camera off the tripod and it rested at an angle against the side of the bunker.  By now, he was becoming quite agitated and in attempting to open the hatch, he knocked the camera even more so that it finished up lying flat on the base of the bunker.  From here, he is seen to open the hatch and make good his bid for freedom.  It appears that he pops back to make sure there was no food left.  It is tricky to see in the video how he manages to get out as the picture is vertical. Here are some stills that provide the links to the videos.


Here is Bully-Boy Billy on the right.

Longer version on:-
Who are you looking at?
Oh-oh!  Now what?
Longer version on:-

 In view of the problems with the door shutting, I have removed it completely and the bird food is now kept inside the garage.

Meanwhile, my little bluetit is still sitting on her ten eggs.  They may start to hatch at any time from tomorrow.
 

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