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Archive for June, 2009

Fieldnotes: 12th June 2009 – Badger, singular

Posted in Fieldnotes, tagged , on June 12, 2009| 1 Comment »

Badger at the Pine Tree sett

Badger at the Pine Tree sett

On my reconnaissance of the Pine Tree sett a few weeks ago I identified three separate holes spread out a hundred or so yards apart along a line roughly north-south.  I’ve watched at the southern hole a couple of times but seen no badgers, and I’ve seen a single badger both times I’ve watched at the northern hole.

Where are the other badgers?  I decided to spend a couple of hours watching the middle hole.

And now it’s time for a confession.  The bracken has grown up over the past couple of weeks, and although I looked for the middle hole I couldn’t find it.  Some outdoorsman I am!

Rather than go back home again I settled down to watch the southern hole.  This is the one with the biggest spoil heap, so it should be occupied, and the spoil showed recent tracks.  Perhaps I could clear up the mystery of why I’ve never seen any badgers there.

At 9.03pm a badger appeared.   But it did not emerge from the hole, it came from the woods behind and then went into the hole.  After another ten minutes or so it emerged again.  This hole is under the roots of a pine tree, and the badger emerged from between the roots, just like a badger in a picture book.

Unfortunately the light had faded and my camera was struggling.  The only decent picture I got is the one at the top of the post, and that isn’t very good.  Shame.  It would have been great to get a picture of the badger emerging from beneath the tree.

After a minute or two the badger trotted off into the depths of the wood.  Nothing else happened.

I’m starting to suspect that there is only one badger at the sett.  When I last saw the badger at the northern hole it emerged at 8.50pm and walked towards the southern hole.  This is exactly the same thing I saw tonight.  I need to get a clear picture and see if I can recognise it as the same badger.

It seems odd that there should be only one though.  Is it normal for one badger to have three holes?  Nor does this square the evidence I got from tracking, which showed multiple tracks on this side of the pasture field, or the well-worn paths in the area.  Perhaps there are more and they still haven’t shown themselves, but I don’t think so.

If nothing else, this highlights my continuing ignorance of what constitutes a main sett and what is merely a subsidiary sett, and how these relate to clan relationships between different groups.  As soon as I’ve worked it out I’ll let you know.

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Fieldnotes: 7th June 2009 – The bark eating mystery solved?

Posted in Fieldnotes, That's not a badger!, tagged , on June 8, 2009| 5 Comments »

I had been getting a little perplexed by the behaviour of my badgers; in particular I was worried that they had been driven to eat bark by the recent dry weather.  However, the more I looked at the problem, the less sure I became.

Thanks very much to everyone who shared their experience with me here.  Spiney, for instance, sent me a picture of bark-eating near a badger sett in Yorkshire.  This looks like a beech tree – another tree with quite a sugary bark.

Bark eating - picture by Spiney - thanks!

Bark eating - picture by Spiney - thanks!

John from Badgerpics.org.uk very helpfully supplied information on the bark-eating habits of different animals, whilst on a related topic Josie was very helpful with further details of the badger ‘nests’.  Thanks everyone – it’s great to have this sort of assistance.

To try and settle the matter I spent the evening down at the Pine Tree sett.  My plan was to lurk around and see if I could catch the culprit in the act.

When I arrived I realised that it was even less likely that badgers were to blame.  The bark-eating had spread to the neighboring trees and extended far up into the branches.  There is no way a badger could get so high on such a thin branch.

More bark damage

More bark damage

In fact, the only animal I know that can reach these branches is a squirrel.  This seems to be the only possible explanation.  It is far too high for deer, rabbits, badgers or even voles.  The toothmarks on the high level damage are the same as on the ground level damage, so the same animal is responsible for all of it.

Bark tooth marks

Bark tooth marks

There were indeed squirrels in the area, and they were feeding in the sycamore trees, but I couldn’t quite see exactly what they were feeding on.

To make sure, I sat well back from the area and waited, just in case a badger came out and had a quick nibble on a tree.  I was sitting far back from the bank so I couldn’t see the hole, but at 8.50pm I heard the unmistakable sound of a badger scratching, and then a few seconds later the badger itself ambled into view.  Before I could even raise the camera it trotted off towards the southern end of the sett.  It walked past the freshly gnawed tree without even a second glance.

So there you have it.  Two hours of sitting in a wood for one 15 second view of a badger.  It was worth it though.  The bark was a mystery, but it’s been an interesting challenge to work out what was going on.

So, to conclude, it seems that badgers can and do eat bark, particularly sycamore.  However, on this occasion it looks like I have one or more rogue squirrels in the area who have taken a liking to it.  The fact that they started to eat the bark at ground level and right outside a badger sett put me on the wrong track for a while, but the true facts emerged.

Like I said, it keeps me out of mischief!

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Fieldnotes: 7th June 2009 – A wasps’ nest dug out by badgers

Posted in Fieldnotes, tagged , on June 8, 2009| 2 Comments »

Wasps nest dug out by badger

Wasps nest dug out by badger

The hot dry spell ended with a vengeance on Sunday.  I went for my customary walk at 7.00am and the rain was torrential.  I splashed happily through the rivers of rainwater that were running down the road.

I went for a walk more out of habit than in any hopes of seeing any wildlife.  I thought that they’d have more sense than to be out in a downpour.  And so it proved.  There was one solitary Chinese Water Deer in the field (do they like to be wet?) but apart from that I was on my own.

I did find one interesting thing.  In the field behind my house was a wasps’ nest that had been dug out.  The nest had obviously been dug out overnight as there were a few dazed and confused wasps wandering over the wreck of their home.  This is a classic badger feeding sign, but one I’ve never seen before.  The badgers dig out the nest to get at the larvae inside, and by all accounts they are not bothered too much by the stings.

Fine by me.  I have no love for wasps.  As far as I’m concerned it was a good night’s work by the badger.  That’ll do, badger.  That’ll do.

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Fieldnotes: 6th June 2009 – This riddle winds itself ever deeper

Posted in Fieldnotes, Thoughts and Musings, tagged , , on June 6, 2009| 6 Comments »

OK.  Time to bare my soul a little.

Most people in Britain have never seen a badger.  Many have seen a dead badger by the side of the road, but few ever see a live one.  Of those that do, I suspect that most are content to enjoy the experience, to enjoy the badger as an impressive yet endearing part of our wildlife.  As I’ve said before, once people see a badger they seem to become hooked.  Even Ernest Neal, the undisputed authority on badgers, first came across one by accident and this led to a lifetime of work studying these creatures.

But for me it is not enough to just watch badgers.  I’ve gone past the “wow – there’s a badger!” phase.  I want to understand them.  I think I’m becoming obsessed.

Now don’t get me wrong – it’s not a bad obsession to have.  It’s quite healthy.  I could be addicted to drink or drugs, but instead I’m becoming addicted to badgers.  It’s a pleasant diversion from work, it keeps my mind active and stops me getting up to mischief, and most importantly it encourages me to get out and enjoy the countryside on my doorstep.

What started out as a good excuse to go for a walk in the woods has now got me learning about animal behaviour, territoriality, social bonding and the whole ecology of woodlands.  As soon as I think I’ve understood how badgers work, I discover something new and realise I actually don’t know very much at all.

All of this philosophical musing has been triggered by a short walk in the woods this morning.  I wanted to go out and have a look at the Pine Tree sett, specifically to see if there was any more evidence of badgers eating the sycamore bark.

Sycamore with gnawed bark

Sycamore with gnawed bark

When I got to the sett I found that there was a lot more evidence of bark eating.  Another tree had been ‘attacked’ and more bark was missing from the original tree.  But from what I’ve seen, I’m not sure that badgers are the culprits.

The bark shows clear toothmarks – lots of them and quite small – rather than a few large claw marks that I’d expect from a badger.  More conclusive was that the damage to the bark now extends to about 8 feet off the ground.  Badgers are actually surprisingly good at climbing trees (and they seem to enjoy it as a game) but I think that this height is beyond them.  I now need to research squirrel feeding, and see if that fits the bill.  Even better, I need to spend an evening here and see if I can catch the culprit in the act.

Bark damage close up

Bark damage close up - scale in cm

Acting on suggestions from people on the Wild About Britain forum, I examined the badger dung in the latrine nearby.  It seemed a bit more green than usual but there were no clear signs of bark in it.  And no – I didn’t bring any home for analysis.  I’m not that obsessed yet!

Badger Dung

Badger Dung

Walking back through the woods, I came across more puzzling animal signs.  For want of a better word I’ll call these ‘nests’.  They were substantial piles of grass that had been pulled up and shaped into a mound, sometimes with a hollow in the middle.  They are undoubtedly the bedding of some animal.

I’ve come across these before, and I wondered if they were piles of bedding that a badger had collected and then for some reason abandoned on the way back to the sett.  After seeing more of them today I think that they are more likely to be nests in their own right, where an animal sleeps.  I found them in dry, sheltered spots.  Here’s one under a fallen tree:

Badger Nest 1

Here’s one under the shelter of a pine tree:

Badger Nest 2

The nests were associated with paths, but whether these were badger paths I could not say.  The whole area is criss-crossed by badger paths and deer paths, and to confuse matters the badgers use deer paths and the deer use badger paths.

Are these nests made by badgers?  What other animals deliberately gather bedding from distance?  If they are badger nests, why are they there?  Why are the badgers not safely underground in their sett?  Are they used as temporary shelter?  Are these badgers part of a sett, or are they some sort of homeless, ‘hobo badgers’, sleeping rough?  If so, how do they fit into the territories of the other badgers?

Do you see now how this whole badger business can become obsessive?  If anyone has any answers, please do let me know.

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Birdwatching – 2nd June 2009

Posted in Birds, That's not a badger!, tagged , , , , on June 4, 2009| 2 Comments »

Tawny Owl

Tawny Owl

On Tuesday I went to the wood and, as recorded below, I didn’t see any badgers. In the absence of badgers, I spent the evening watching birds, and I want to make some notes on these – hence the separate post.

It always amazes me what you can see if you sit quietly and unobtrusively somewhere for an hour or so.  I had a pair of bullfinches working the tree in front of me.  These are far less common now than when I was a lad, so it was good to see them.  There was also a pair of robins with a nest about 50 feet away, and they spent the whole evening going backwards and forwards with food for the young – it was a proper Springwatch moment.  I always find it slightly strange to see robins in the wild.  I am so used to seeing them in the garden that I tend to forget that they exist outside.

One of the most interesting things for me personally was the effect of a tawny owl on the local birds.  As it was getting dark, a tawny owl called from the deep woods somewhere behind me – kee-wick, kee-wick.  Instantly, a blackbird nearby started up its chattering alarm call – chink-chink-chink-chink-chink. Then another blackbird did the same a little further away, and then a third.

The blackbirds had obviously heard and seen the owl and they were raising the alarm.  What made it so interesting was that although I could not see the owl myself, I could locate its position and track its progress by the alarm calls of the blackbirds.

Some trackers regard this as a higher form of tracking – following a predator through the reactions of other species.  Jon Young discusses it in detail in Animal Tracking Basics (probably the least basic book on tracking I’ve ever read, incidentally).  I’ve noticed blackbirds responding to foxes in this way, but this was the first time I’ve really been able to follow the progress of a predator through alarm calls.  I was quite pleased with myself.

So although there were no badgers that evening, I still had a great time.  All of this happened in a little patch of woodland that 99% of people would drive past without a second thought.

If you’re interested in nature and wildlife then I strongly recommend you find somewhere outside – a wood, a field, a park, anywhere – and just sit there quietly for at least an hour.  I think you’d be surprised at what you see and hear.

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Fieldnotes: 2nd June 2009 – A good evening but no badgers

Posted in Fieldnotes on June 4, 2009| 1 Comment »

On Saturday I watched the southern entrance of the Pine Tree sett without seeing any badgers.  It looks as though there should be badgers in residence – there’s plenty of fresh spoil and well-used paths – so maybe it was just an odd coincidence that they came out late, or maybe I disturbed them somehow.

To make sure, I went back to this part of the sett on Tuesday.  Once again, I saw no badgers.  I’m coming to the conclusion that there are no badgers in this particular hole.

I’m trying to make sense of all this in terms of used and unused holes and the way a clan of badgers organises itself into main, outlying and subsidiary setts.  I know that sows with cubs will take themselves off to an unused hole, and that boars new to an area will do the same.  Perhaps these are outlying holes and there’s a main part of the sett here that I haven’t observed yet.

Sycamore tree with stripped bark

Sycamore tree with stripped bark

It was still a worthwhile outing, with plenty to see.  I noticed that at the northern hole the badgers have stripped the bark off a young sycamore tree and eaten it.  At least, I presume it was badgers – the tree is right next to the sett and it was stripped of bark up to 3 feet high, so I don’t think anything else could have done it.

Neal and Cheeseman mention that badgers will sometimes eat sycamore bark in early spring when the sap is rising.  It is almost midsummer now, but perhaps the recent dry spell has made other food less available, so the badgers are having to expand their diet.  I’ll keep an eye on this.  I’d rather not feed them, but I don’t want them to go hungry either.

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