The badger came last night. Nothing unusual in that, one tends to come most nights (I can’t help smiling every morning when I see that they have been, and get nervous when they miss a night), but this badger is quite distinctive. He’s got little ears. In fact, compared to some of the badgers who wander through the garden, he’s quite little all over. A cub from last year? I wonder.
The other thing (that makes me think he might be young) is he is very inquisitive. Usually the badgers are a bit nervous of the camera when I haven’t put it out for a while, but not this one. He marched straight up to it and had a good sniff and snort. So much so that you can see clouds of his misty breath. He then decided it wasn’t pointing in the right direction and promptly moved it to spy on my front door! Badgers revenge?
The first day of a new year. It feels so clean and fresh, like I’ve been given a book with hundreds of blank, pure white pages just waiting to be filled. This year I’ve decided to fill a few of those pages with wildlife, and more specifically wildlife from my own garden. Big, small, loud or mute they will all be counted. The aim is to record 365 native UK wildlife species (flora or fauna) in 365 days. The rules are simple; if it’s growing in the garden, flies over it, lands in it, is wandering around it, or can be heard in it, it counts towards my WGW365.
I put the trail camera out last night in the hope of getting footage of one of my favourite creatures, a badger, and I wasn’t disappointed. At 3am it trundled through and demolished the brick house that holds just a handful of sunflower seeds for it every night, but it wasn’t the first creature in my 365 list.
That accolade goes to the tawny owl sitting in the trees outside our bedroom window, screeched quietly to itself. I only heard it when the fireworks died down, a few minutes past twelve, but it was unmistakable. Not a loud call, more a mumble under its breath – complaining about the noise.
If you’d like to join me in my challenge, start today, or tomorrow or even next week (there’s still time to catch up!). Every garden, no matter how big or small, has exciting wildlife discoveries just waiting to be made. Don’t worry if you don’t know what they all are, there are hundreds of people online who can help. From the wildlife community identification website iSpot, to Twitter (email me a photo any time at @WildlifeStuff) or a whole host of links provided by @RichardComont at Insect Rambles. Then keep track of all your records by adding them to iRecord. Not difficult to use, developed by @JohnvanBreda, and a great way to share your records with the UK wildlife community (and keep count of your 365).
No recording of the tawny, but the demolishing badger is here…
It has been ages since I did an update on the foxes and badgers, so last night I set up the front garden infra-red camera and captured some film overnight. I’m pleased to report that everyone seems to be fit and healthy!
Last Sunday I spent the evening watching badgers in deepest-darkest Dorset.
The farmer who owns this land has set up a hide for people who want to watch the badgers. He also puts some very tempting peanuts down for them! Every night they come out of their sett and wander down to the peanut-field in front of the hide.
It was wet, cold and generally a bit rubbish for badgers…. but we were lucky.
We ended up seeing three badgers. The footage is pretty “damp” looking (as it’s through rain-covered glass) but they did come out in broad daylight (about 7.30pm) so we still managed to get a good look at them.
I will try to go back later in the year to see the cubs and to take some “better” video.
The badger, Apple, made a short and sweet “walk through” visit early this morning at 2.56am squatting to leave a scent mark as she walked! No food left for her so she kept on going. First time I’ve seen her since the two days of snow on the 6 and 7 April. Dry last night and slightly warmer, but still a frost. Continue reading →
Just a diary note for me. The badger visited early this morning at 3.09am. Didn’t stay long, just sniffed the air a lot. Not comfortable and moved on within a couple of minutes, even though there was food on the ground. It was dry and fairly warm.
This post is all about firsts. It started with me seeing my first hare (last week). Then filming my first badger in the garden. Then I had my first cold of the year and heard my first chiff-chaff and skylark, and today another first.
URBAN EXTENSION 