Tales from the Wood – The Diary of a Badger Watching Man

On the one hand, there are signs that spring is peeping through.  The snowdrops have been up for a couple of weeks and the daffodils are starting to show.  The woods are thick with the first bluebell shoots and the catkins are out on the hazels.  On the other hand, the weather is still distinctly wintry.  Saturday’s heavy rain gave way to a fine misty drizzle today.  It’s been a dark, cold and gloomy day.

I spent some time this morning starting to tidy up the vegetable garden, beginning the transformation from soggy, chicken-ravaged wilderness to productive veg patch.  Speaking of chickens, I clipped their wings today to try to put an end to a recent spate of escapes (the ungrateful little minxes have everything they want – loads of space, a whole vegetable garden to scratch in and a lovely coop, and they still persist in escaping) and – avert your eyes, gentle reader – I set traps for the rats.  Where there are chickens, there are rats.  They live in my compost bins and flourish and grow fat on the leftover chicken feed.  Despite my recent chivalry towards the rat that the cat brought in, I need to control their numbers.  Let’s not be squeamish about it.

In the afternoon I was on parenting duty, so it was on with the backpack baby carrier and off to the wood.  I thought I’d follow my own advice about this being a good time of year for sett surveys and see what else was happening.  We walked to the far end of the wood, through the dark, mist-dripping trees, to the Beech Tree sett.  This was much easier to see without the summer bracken, but to my disappointment there were no signs of recent use.  There were no signs of disturbance (i.e. it had not been dug out or blocked), but it did not look at all badgery.  The footpaths in the wood showed clear badger tracks, the badger paths looked well-used (although they are also used by deer, so this isn’t a definite sign) and I was even able to track a badger through the muddy pasture on the far side of the wood and up a farm track.  But the Beech Tree sett itself was apparently unused.

I’m beginning to doubt myself now.  I’ve only ever watched this sett a couple of times, and I’ve never actually seen a badger come out.  Perhaps it isn’t a badger sett at all?  Perhaps it’s been unused for a while?  If it isn’t an active sett then there must be one close by that is.  There’s far too much evidence of badger activity for there not to be, and the location is right for my territory map.

As ever, the badgers have got me confused.  I think I need to take a few more walks up to the wood before the summer to see if I can either see some activity at the Beech Tree or track down another sett.

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The backpack baby carrier

It’s been a while since I last had a look at the main badger sett in the wood so it was overdue a visit.  I like to go to the sett at this time of year – the lack of undergrowth makes it easy to see the layout of the site (not easy in summer when there’s waist-high nettles), and the number of active holes gives you an idea of the prosperity of the clan.  The badgers should be giving birth to cubs now; extra active holes is a sign that the females have set up separate ‘maternity’ holes safely away from the rest of the group.

The badgers seem to have declined sharply in numbers at this sett, from 12 or so a couple of years ago down to maybe just  four last year.  I was keen to check that they were OK.  There was no chance of seeing badgers in the middle of the day, but hopefully the activity at the sett would give me an idea.

Getting up to the wood presented a bit of a challenge.  Mrs BWM has been away for the weekend for work, so that means if I was going to go to the wood, then Scarlett was going to come with me.  The all-terrain baby buggy is good, but I didn’t fancy lugging it over fallen trees in the wood.  Besides, it’s been raining a lot this week and the fields around here resemble a Flanders battlefield in 1917.  It was time to try out a new piece of kit – a backpack baby carrier that a friend had kindly given us.  It was surprisingly comfortable to carry – I’m used to carrying a big rucksack after years of backpacking – and Scarlett enjoyed peering out over my shoulder.  All in all it proved a very effective way of covering rough ground.

Badger tracks in mud - note the heel pad, which rarely shows up on firmer ground

The mud was deep and claggy but it showed up tracks beautifully.  The badgers had been out in force, with badger tracks literally covering the ground at the entrance to the wood.  So far so good – the badgers are there and they’re active.

The sett itself showed similarly encouraging signs.  The badger paths were all well-trodden and the dung pits were well-used.  Six of the sett entrances showed significant signs of use, both tracks and spoil from recent excavation.  Interestingly, I did a similar survey almost exactly a year ago, and different holes were active then than are active now.  Most of the active holes were at the east end of the sett, with only the main hole at the west end showing signs of use.  This is not necessarily anything to be concerned about.  I’m getting used to the idea that badgers move regularly between holes at the sett, even though I still don’t know why they do it or what determines which holes they use.  I have an idea that it is related to clan relationships and hierarchy, but I’m a long way off proving it or even providing a working hypothesis.  One day the pieces of the puzzle will fall into place.

Active badger hole - fresh spoil and no dead leaves

Overall, it was a useful visit.  The badgers seem to be active and there were no signs of disturbance or visible casualties.  I’ll try to get a nocturnal session up here soon and see if I can’t observe the badgers themselves.

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I commute into work on the train so I drive to the station each morning.   Instead of driving the quick way on the main roads I get up a little earlier and drive a longer route along the country lanes.  I like this – there’s always a chance of coming across the local wildlife on the quieter roads and in the woods and I feel that I get out into the proper countryside every day, even on workdays.  On most journeys I’ll see something – a muntjac, a chinese water deer or a hare.

But this morning, after a year and a half of driving this route, I added a new species to the list.  As I drove up the lane about a mile from home, there was a badger, trotting along happily at the side of the road.  This was at 6.30 this morning, so it was late for a badger to be out foraging, but it had been a mild, damp night so it was perfect conditions for catching worms.  Maybe it stayed out to make the most of it.

I’ve never seen a badger around here before, but it was next to a large patch of (unfortunately private) woodland, so I guess it lives close.  Apart from adding a little to my badger map of the area it was good to see one of the beasts again.  It’s the first live badger I’ve seen since September.  I feel like a proper Badger Watching Man again.

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Speaking of books, I bought myself another good one recently.   It’s called The Nocturnal Naturalist by Kelvin Boot.  Published in 1985 it’s out of print now (I bought mine, an ex-library copy, for £2 on Amazon), which is a shame as it’s a good book.  Let me quote you a paragraph from the opening page:

‘My interest in the night stemmed from a combination of curiosity and necessity – I wanted to study wild creatures but had to work for a living during the day.  The result was a revelation.  I was astounded at how much could be seen within a small radius and am now convinced that a thorough understanding of an area can only be gained by studying it at night.’

Here, clearly, is a man after my own heart.  Not only does he share my desire to understand the wildlife on his local patch, but he also has no time to do it in daylight.  The obvious course of action was to follow his example and make more use of the hours of darkness.

Tonight I put the theory into practice.  Unfortunately the weather was filthy; strong winds – the tail-end of the recent gales – and a steady drizzle blowing sideways across the fields in the gusts.  Not ideal for any wildlife, and certainly not ideal for me.  Nevertheless, I wanted to put the whole nocturnal thing into practice, and besides, there is always a pleasure in being out when everyone else is tucked up inside.

It’s a good thing that everyone was inside, because I spent an hour and a half and a shuffling slowly around the local area dressed in my camouflage jacket and peering through my night vision scope.  Anyone seeing me would have probably called the police.  It’s a sign that I’ve grown soft lately, but I couldn’t face the mile-long walk up to the wood in these conditions.  Instead, I settled for the circuit of the fields and copses behind my house – the same route that makes up my usual short tracking walk.  I know from the signs that I’ve found here that there are foxes, badgers, a range of deer species and at least one stoat that all frequent this area, so it’s a good a place to start as any.

I decided to use the NV scope instead of a torch.  Walking while using the scope was almost impossible, but I found it was easy enough to scan the area, walk a few yards and then stop and scan again.  The infra-red illuminator meant that any animals showed up by their eye-shine, so it was quite an effective way of searching an area.

Did I see foxes, badgers, deer or stoats?  No.  I saw a total of 14 rabbits.  I probably see more (and more interesting) wildlife on my drive to the station each morning, but that’s not the point.  I was outdoors and I was enjoying myself.

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