If you read my last post you’ll know that I’m being unfaithful to ‘my’ badgers and investigating the neighboring sett – the Pine Tree sett. This sett seems to have three main holes spread widely apart. Last night I watched the southernmost hole without a sign of any badgers. Tonight I decided to have a [...]
Archive for May, 2009
Fieldnotes: 31st May 2009 – Back at the Pine Tree sett
Posted in Fieldnotes, Video, tagged badger, bedding, Pine Tree Sett, sett on May 31, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Fieldnotes: 30th May 2009 – A visit to the neighbours
Posted in Fieldnotes, Thoughts and Musings, tagged badger, sett on May 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I’ve tried to make a point of watching one group of badgers rather than flitting around here, there and everywhere, the idea being that I should be able to learn more by getting to know one group very well. OK. Today I changed my mind slightly, and decided to go and have a look at [...]
Hedgehog!
Posted in That's not a badger!, tagged hedgehog on May 30, 2009 | 3 Comments »
I’ve been writing this diary for a year now, and do you know what the most popular post has been? Has it been my insightful and, dare I say, scholarly comments on badger behaviour? Has it been the videos and fieldnotes that make the experience of badger watching available to all? Has it been my [...]
Fieldnotes: 23rd-25th May 2009 – Busy busy busy!
Posted in Fieldnotes, tagged badger, badgers, cubs, fox on May 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Things have been busier than usual at work and around the house lately, hence I’m late in writing up my notes. It’s been a gloriously hot bank holiday weekend, and I’ve been taking the opportunity to thrash the garden into shape. Where there was a jungle there are now neat rows of vegetables and trimmed [...]
Fieldnotes: 10th May 2009 – More fox cubs
Posted in Fieldnotes, That's not a badger!, Video, tagged fox, fox cubs on May 10, 2009 | 2 Comments »
I’ve spent the evening watching the fox cubs by the sett. I counted five of them (I think) and they’re great fun. Here’s a short fox cubs video compilation. Altogether now – “Awwww!”
Fieldnotes: 9th May 2009 – Fox cubs and badgers
Posted in Fieldnotes, tagged badgers, fox, fox cubs on May 10, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I still haven’t managed to get a good look at any badger cubs this year, so once again I climbed the hill to the woods. The badgers had obviously been busy around the western part of the sett, so I set myself up there and waited. The wait was made easier by a great-spotted woodpecker [...]
Camouflage for watching badgers?
Posted in Thoughts and Musings, tagged badgers, camouflage on May 9, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Today I bought a new camouflage shirt to wear in the summer when my jacket gets too hot. Everyone knows that your clothes should be a drab green or brown (or in my case a mixture of the two with pictures of leaves on) so that you blend into the background and the wildlife can’t [...]
Fieldnotes: 4th May 2009 – How NOT to watch badgers
Posted in Fieldnotes, tagged fallow deer on May 4, 2009 | 1 Comment »
After taking some pride in my fieldcraft a couple of weeks ago, tonight was a lesson on what not do when badger watching. The wind was blowing briskly from the south west today, so I approached the sett from the north east to keep myself downwind. There’s a climbable hornbeam tree at this end of [...]
More Bedfordshire Red Kites
Posted in That's not a badger!, tagged Bedfordshire, birdwatching, red kite on May 4, 2009 | 1 Comment »
It’s always the way. You wait for ages for one Red Kite, and then three turn up at once. On Sunday I got up early, packed up a flask of tea and some food, and went out for an early stroll and a picnic breakfast. I sat under the big oak tree and looked across [...]