By Denis O’Connor

Wharfedale Naturalists Society

THE first badger emerged about 9 o’clock, half an hour before sunset on a beautiful clear-sky evening. It raced across the top of the sett before diving down into another of the dozen entrance burrows.

Nothing happened for the next ten minutes then a head appeared at the biggest entrance (pictured), popping up occasionally for a while before this one and several others ventured out, cautiously at first, raising their heads to scent the air and at times crowding the entrances.

With a sense of smell hundreds of times more acute than our own, we did wonder, with a slight breeze swirling, whether they were picking us up. We were in full view but a badger’s eyesight is poor and they rely much more on smell and hearing.

Eventually maybe eight adults came out from the different entrances and seemed to spend time getting reacquainted and renewing clan ties after a day spent below ground. Last came several cubs, born probably in February so now quite large, behaving like true adolescents, chasing, fighting and rolling round with the main aim seeming to be to bite one another’s tails.

This sett was in farmland but some weeks before my son and I had spent an evening below a woodland sett without seeing any badgers emerge before dark. However we had set up three trail cameras near the dozen sett entrances ranged up the slope.

When we reclaimed them after two days, one camera was pointing at the tree tops while another was muddy where an inquisitive animal had nuzzled it, the video sequence showing an extreme close-up of black and white fur and a brief eyeball.

The cameras showed continual badger activity during the hours of darkness with a couple of surprises. A roe deer wandered past as did a fox, probably on its way through although it is not unknown for foxes to share a badger sett.

I recently received a photo from Steve Westerman of a badger carrying a dead bird, probably a crow, into its sett, an unusual picture for badgers only rarely carry food back. They are opportunistic feeders, usually eating food where they find it, and will eat many dead animals they encounter with the main source probably being roadkill.

There are many anecdotal accounts of badgers eating both domestic and farm animals leading to the largely incorrect conclusion that they had killed the animals when they were in fact clearing up ones already dead.

wharfedale-nats.org.uk