| Many
people only see badgers by the roadside; like the one below. (Click the
picture for an enlarged version) This
one was killed a couple of nights ago just 400 metres from our
house. Luckily, it isn't one of our "regulars" although
any death like this is upsetting. This brings our total to eight road kills in the last three months within a ten mile radius of our house. That's just the ones that we have seen on a few of the roads that we use. If it is possible, I like to move the badger from the roadside so that it is out of sight for other passers-by. I do this because it's not a pretty sight to see and it also advertises the presence of a sett to people with ill-intent towards them. I turned this animal over to sex it and see whether it had been suckling cubs recently. There was no evidence of that. |
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| Since
writing the first page about our badgers there have been some major
changes to the local situation. Originally, there were at least nine badgers in a sett that was situated by the side of a public footpath near our home. During the closure of paths, because of the foot and mouth outbreak, a new farmer moved in to the farm and removed the hedges along each side of the path. I assume that he was unaware that there was a badger sett there. The animals split up and spread out to create new sub-setts (is that a word??). One group of three, two sows and a boar, started a new sett about 300 metres away from our house. For the last eighteen months or so, these three badgers have appeared regularly on the patio. One of the sows has a distinct pink patch on her nose so she has been christened "Pinky". We believe that the other female, with a much smaller patch, is her daughter from two years ago and she is called "Perky". The boar does not have a name. Badgers generally have their cubs in February. It is usually only the dominant sow that will have cubs and we assume this to be Pinky. Throughout May and early June, we have watched for the first sign of the cubs being introduced to peanut butter sandwiches and raw peanuts. In mid-May, Viv saw
one with an adult approaching the patio along the side of the lawn but,
before we could get a video camera, our neighbour let his dog out for a
run and they were off! We then watched and waited to see the cub
again. |
See if you
can spot the cubs from these stills taken from the video.
Click the pictures for an enlarged version.
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SEE NOTES BELOW
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Watch how the cub on the right
turns its body to get a better chance of grabbing the food by forcing its elder
out of the way!
Dial-up users please note
The low resolution video
should load in about 4 minutes on a slow, dial-up connection. The larger
one will take nearer 25 minutes to download. If you have a broadband
connection; you should have no problems!!
Drinking at the bird bath
| Last evening I watched four different badgers all take a drink at the bird bath on our patio. I missed recording the first but got the other three. The third one kindly showed himself more clearly than the others. Click the pictures for a larger version. |
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Click the icon for the video |
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Attack on a young vixen
| On Friday, 25th July, 2003, we
had a family barbecue and a session watching badgers and foxes. We
were lucky enough to see six badgers in the garden at one time. This
was the first time that we have ever seen more than five. It was
short-lived, though. There were three on the patio and three more
down on the lawn so I was unable to get all of them on one piece of video
before a couple were spooked and dashed off. The most remarkable and frightening sight that we all witnessed was one of the badgers attacking a young vixen that we have not seen before. She was quite relaxed on the patio although she was aware of the fact that we were watching her. She was giving the badgers a reasonable amount of respect but did not seem to be too wary... to her cost! She waited for one of the badgers to remove some chicken bones from the feeding bowl and then moved in to help herself and forgot to keep a watchful eye behind her! This was when another badger moved in. She grabbed the fox's tail and shook her like a rag doll. She then used her whole body-weight to turn the fox onto her back so that she could pin her down and attack her leg. She got a hold on one of the front ones before the vixen was able to escape and run off. The attack lasted less than ten seconds but was surprising in its ferocity. Here is a sequence of stills from the video. Click on any picture for a larger version.
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Here is a set of videos. They are all the same except for the resolution and speed. The first is a low res version for dial-up connections. The second is a low res version but at half speed and the third is a higher resolution version for the lucky ones with broad band.
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| Thursday,
11th March, 2004
Last Monday evening, I saw a badger arrive on the patio very early. It was only about 7.15. I had not yet put out any food so, once it realised this and had left, I put out a supply. We had been having a bit of a clear-out in the freezer and had eaten several curries that needed to be consumed. There was also some of that long spaghetti! We had our fill but there was still a good deal left. This was the badgers' gain! There was enough to fill their two bowls. I also put out the usual peanut butter squares and a scoop of raw peanuts. At 7.45, the first badger arrived followed
pretty rapidly by four more to give us our usual five. We can still
tell the cubs from last year as they are still somewhat smaller than the
adults. To our surprise and delight, another badger appeared making a new
record for the patio. I did see six in the garden once. Five
were already on the patio and the sixth was just coming up the garden path
but they all ran off when startled by a dog barking. This was the
first time that we had been able to get video of all six at once. |
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Video
This video shows all six badgers.
It is 1.19 megabytes and lasts for 14 seconds
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