What does a badger sett look like? Every now and then someone asks me this question, so it’s about time that I tried to answer it properly. This is my guide to badger setts and what to look for. I have hesitated a little before writing this. After all, badgers are still persecuted in some parts of the country, and I don’t want to make it any easier for someone with bad intentions to find badger setts. On the other hand, the more people that know about the badgers in their area the better. If people are aware of their local setts then they can keep an eye on them, and besides, badgers have been a source of pleasure for me and I’d like to share the experience with other people if I can.
I’ve illustrated this post with pictures taken on a walk this afternoon. This is a good time of year to go out and look for badger setts. The badgers are active and the vegetation has not yet grown up. Believe me, trying to find badger setts in head-high nettles is a daunting prospect.
The first step to identifying a badger sett is to find a likely area where they might be living. Badgers are surprisingly widespread and they have a fantastic ability to live under people’s noses and yet remain out of sight, so don’t rule out any patch of countryside. They do have certain preferences though, and to narrow down the search you have to understand a little about their habits and lifestyle. It helps to be able to think like a badger!
People think of badgers as woodland creatures, and it’s true, they mostly do live in woods and that is where to look for them. But they don’t spend all their time there. In the UK, the main food of the badger is the earthworm, and the best place to catch earthworms is on short grass – ideally grass that has been grazed by livestock. So the best place to find badgers is in woodland that borders on grassy fields. They live in the wood and that gives them shelter and security; and they can feed in the fields.
But not all woodlands are good for badgers. Badgers live underground, so they need somewhere suitable for digging. Damp, marshy ground is definitely out and anywhere that is liable to flood (such as river valleys) is usually avoided. In my part of Bedfordshire the badgers prefer the nice, dry sandy soil, but they also seem quite happy in clay. Badgers definitely seem to prefer a sloping site rather than a very flat one. This might be the slope of a hill, the side of a disused quarry or even a large hedgerow bank. They like anywhere where they can tunnel in sideways rather than straight down. I suppose that it is easier to dig, easier to shift the soil, better drained and presumably easier for them to walk out of a horizontal hole rather than climb out of a vertical one.
So we are looking for a piece of woodland with sloping ground with grassy fields nearby. Should we now go into the wood and start looking for holes? Well no. Not yet.
Badgers will cover a territory with a radius of 300-500m from their sett. This means that there will often be many signs of badgers in the general area of the sett. Finding these can give you confidence that there are badgers in the vicinity and help to narrow down your search. Fortunately badgers are creatures of habit and leave some regular indications of their presence.
If you’re walking through pasture fields, keep a lookout for badger paths, snuffle holes and dung pits. Badgers travel on paths whenever possible (see Why do badgers use paths?) and over time these paths can be quite pronounced. If I recall, Pablo even managed to identify badger paths from satellite photographs on Google maps. I’ve tried this myself, and it really is possible.
Here is a series of paths over the pasture field. The trouble with paths is that you never really know who makes them, whether it is badgers or another animal (humans being another obvious cause). In this case I have tracked badgers across this field when there has been snow on the ground and they consistently follow these paths.
Here’s another example. In this case the path crosses the field and then goes under a fence. This means that it cannot have been made by humans, livestock or deer. Other animals such as rabbits will make regular runs, but if you see a deep path like this, start suspecting badgers.
Incidentally, if you ever come across a path under a fence, check the bottom strand of wire to see if any hairs have been caught. This can give you a positive i.d. of the animal that made the path. Badger hairs are grey or black and have a squarish cross section. When you roll a badger hair between your fingers it feels irregular rather than round.
Snuffle holes are the holes made by badgers digging for food. They are a good sign of badger activity, but other animals can leave similar holes and cause confusion. Rabbits will often dig shallow scrapes, but rabbit scrapes are usually oval whilst badger snuffle holes are more conical.
Dung pits are a particular feature of badger territories. Badgers do not deposit their dung just anywhere, they use special pits. Badgers use dung as a territory marker, so you will often find dung pits on badger paths around the edge of their territory. Dung pits look very much like snuffle holes, but with dung in them.
Badger dung is usually a dark greyish-green, which shows that they have been feeding on earthworms. Badgers will cheerfully eat many other things too, so it is always interesting to inspect the dung pits and see what they have been feeding on. Here’s the dung of badger that seems to have been gorging on cherries (I have no idea where it got them in February!)
Where the territories of two badger clans meet the dung pits can be quite extensive as each side marks its territory. Here’s a large latrine with many pits that badgers have somewhat inconsiderately dug into a main footpath in the wood.
Signs like these tell you that there are badgers in the area and that they are active. Now you can start to look through the wood and try to find their sett. Rather than looking at random, there are a couple of things that will help you. Remember that badgers prefer a slope, so concentrate on areas of sloping ground, particularly on the outskirts of the wood. The other thing you can do is look for paths and follow them. Sooner or later a path will lead you to a sett. It can be great fun to try to follow paths, as they usually twist and turn through the wood, sometimes clear and obvious, other times fading out altogether. A frustrating but fun way to spend an afternoon.
Here’s a particularly clear badger path. Note how generations of badgers have worn a deep path into the soil.
One way to tell that you are following a badger path is to look for tracks – often a difficult challenge in a wood. Alternatively, here’s something you might see. The path goes over a fallen tree and badgers have left clear claw marks as they climbed over.
So what does an actual badger sett look like? The obvious thing to look for is holes in the ground. Depending on the size of the sett there may be anything between a single hole and twenty holes spread over a hundred yards or so. Many animals live in holes, but there are some features of badger setts to look out for.
Badger setts are very extensive underground. Some have up to 300m of tunnels – far more than rabbits or foxes. The badgers have to shift a lot of soil, and this means that badger setts usually have substantial spoil heaps outside. Over time these spoil heaps can literally change the shape of the landscape, creating large shelves or platforms outside the holes. The main sett that I watch is obviously an old one, as the whole area is pock-marked by holes and hummocks so that it resembles a First World War battlefield. Active setts are easy to spot because there will usually be fresh spoil outside. Badgers are compulsive diggers, and although much digging is done in spring before the cubs arrive, they will tend to dig all year round. Here is an entrance to a sett. Notice the large spoil heap and the obvious path coming in from the right.
The spoil heaps will often contain dried grass or bracken that the badgers had dragged in as bedding and then subsequently cleared out at a later date. In my experience this happens when they are preparing an old chamber for re-use, for instance when preparing for cubs.
The actual holes of a badger sett have a characteristic shape, usually referred to as a sideways D. The key feature is that they are broader than they are tall. This makes sense if you think of the shape of a badger – fairly wide and low-slung. Rabbit holes, by contrast, are an oval shape that looks like an O. Here is a classic badger sett entrance that shows the typical shape.
Here’s another sett entrance where the badgers have dug under a fallen tree, either by accident or on purpose, creating a nice sturdy lintel. There are a couple of holes under trees like this at this sett, which makes me wonder whether it is a deliberate choice. I’ve also seen a few setts that are in the roots at the base of a large tree. Again, this gives the badgers the protection of a wooden roof, at least for the entrance to the sett. Perhaps this is a widespread design feature.
Again, notice that the hole is still wider than it is tall.
Active holes will show signs of recent digging, but if you are lucky you can find badger tracks at the entrance to a sett. This is the best evidence you can get that the hole is inhabited by a badger. Note the mass of tracks at this hole, suggesting that a number of badgers are present.
Lastly, have a look around the immediate area of the sett. Badgers will have a main latrine site nearby – like the dung pits on the edge of their territory but larger and more concentrated. At many setts there will be patches of leaf mould that have been dug up and scuffled about as the badgers look for food. There will often also be clear patches where the soil has been worn smooth. These are ‘play areas’ where the badgers congregate, play and groom each other. Sometimes there may be ‘play trees’ – tree stumps or fallen trees that the badgers climb and play over. These are sometimes worn smooth too – the result of whole generations of badgers using them as a playground.
So now you know what to look for. Look for the right sort of habitat – woodland near pasture, ideally with sloping ground. Look out for the peripheral signs of badger activity – paths, dung pits and snuffle holes. Through a combination of following paths and sensibly interpreting the landscape you will hopefully be able to find the sett and confirm that there are badgers in residence. Of course, the best way to tell whether there are badgers present is to actually see one of the beasts, so once you have identified an active sett you can sit up and watch. And that’s where it really starts to get interesting.
Good luck finding badger setts, and good luck watching!
Hi
Lovelove your site of the badgers! Living on the Costa del Sol we are having some badgers too. Unfortunately did not find a set – yet – but they are digging and rolling up the grass of the golf course. My question would be: do you know how much area appr.they cover from their set to an “eating point”? By which I mean I would love to know where to start searching for their set. It is quite hilly here, with lots of stone -not so nice for a badger to dig for sure.
Thank you so much!
Esther
Hi Esther, and welcome!
I’ll bet your badgers aren’t popular with the gardeners at the golf course! They roll up the grass to get at insects underneath and can make quite a mess.
If you were here in the UK I could give you an easy answer to your question. The badgers in my area travel about 350m to 500m from the sett, so if you find signs of feeding around here then you know the sett is close.
But badgers in southern Europe have different habits. Food is scarcer so they travel much longer distances and cover a bigger territory to get enough of it. Hans Kruuk in his book ‘The Social Badger’ describes badgers in Italy, which is a similar climate. They are more solitary there, and do not live in such big family groups. They may even be nomadic, moving between different setts each night as they move around the area.
So – there’ll be a sett somewhere, but you may have more of a challenge finding it. But it’s there somewhere. Good luck!
Hi,
I am a massive badger lover and volunteer at a local wildlife rescue where we help, amongst others, badgers, foxes, hedgehogs, all sorts of birds including birds of prey and some water birds, deer, squirrels and other mammals – if you can think of a specific kind of wildlife, there’s a good chance we help it!
We have lots of hedgehogs and have even released rehabilitated hedgies back into our garden but I know badgers and hedgies aren’t a great combination.
Do you ever find badgers living in gardens? We live in a small village surrounded by woods and open fields and I’m wondering if there are badgers frequenting our gardens. Recently we found a hole – about a foot deep but nowhere near as wide – in our vegetable patch and we really can’t work out what would have dug it. It happened in the night but there’s no evidence of droppings or any other damage.
I loved reading your tales from the wood!
Rebecca
Hi Rebecca and welcome
Good to hear about your wildlife work. I’ve got a lot of respect for anyone who gives up their time to help animals.
Sadly, I think ‘my’ hedgehog fell victim to a road accident a couple of months ago, so I need a new one for the garden. Anything that helps to keep the slugs under control would be very welcome. I don’t know what might have caused your hole. I’ve had moles and rats living in my vegetable garden at different times, but their holes are quite small. Rabbit maybe? There are such things as garden badgers – my colleagues at the badger network get called out about badger setts in gardens quite often – but these are usually from badgers that are well-established in the area. Perhaps the culprit will make itself known in time.
All the best
BWM
Hi BWM!
I must confess that it’s only since I’ve been volunteering that I’ve really “got” badgers! I was always terrified of them thinking they were TB spreading savages. Don’t get me wrong, when I’m cleaning out a cage with a badger in I am always terrified that the cage divider will give way because a cornered and threatened badger would make a few deep indentations in my arm but I realise now that in the wild they’ll have run away from a human before the human even realises they’re there. But here’s an interesting fact for a fellow badger lover – in 17 years of the wildlife rescue where I volunteer not one single badger has ever tested positive for TB – and there are years when up to 50 pass through the rescue so that’s a lot of badgers! AND there is no scientific proof that they can pass TB on – they can carry it, yes, but pass it on? The jury’s out. Where possible we always try and return hedgehogs to the location they were rescued from but it’s not always possible and we always need hedgehog friendly gardens as release sites. You should contact a wildlife rescue near to you and see if it would be possible to release hedghogs into your garden. Our main criteria is that you have to already have hedgehogs – and no dogs!!!
I’ll leave you with this BWM. Not so long ago we had to admit a juvenile badger with serious behavioural issues. Why? Because ignorant humans had tried to keep it as a pet. It beggars belief really. We couldn’t even consider releasing it into the wild. We were lucky enough to find him a wildlife sanctuary who agreed to take him on for the rest of his days. We were lucky – and so was he.
I agree. Badgers are powerful animals but they’ll always give humans a wide berth. And the whole badger/bTB business isn’t based on any firm science. I think it’s the senselessness of the proposed cull that makes people so angry.
Sorry to hear about the badger with behavioural problems. People who try to keep badgers in the home always run into problems. Everything I’ve read on the subject says that badgers cannot be domesticated, which makes sense given their complex social behaviour. The few unprovoked attacks by badgers on humans that have been recorded always seem to involve badgers that have been raised by people. It really does seem to mess them up.
excellent
Many thanks for this excellent blog post. I found it ever so useful.
I am volunteering for my local Badger Trust as a sett checker and today went out for my first ‘lesson’. When I got home I popped on line to see what other useful facts I could find and to give myself a reminder. This post was exactly what I was looking for. Sadly the sett I went out to check today was dug by badger baiters about 6 weeks ago. The good news is the badgers seem to still be thriving and the sett shows signs of activity and they have been spotted out and about by the local farmer.
I am very much looking forward to keeping an eye on these wonderful complex creatures.
Jennie
Hi there and welcome Jennie
Good to hear that you’re out there checking setts with your local badger group. It’s a great excuse for getting out and about and as you say, badgers are both wonderful and complex. Be warned though, once you start it’s difficult to stop!
Let us know how it goes, and feel free to share any experiences you have.
All the best
BWM
Hello!
I have come accross many excellent websites with badger-identifying info, but this is the best so far.
What I would like to know, however, is how quiet does a site need to be for badgers to be happy to dig a sett? I have found some footprints crossing a path in a country park near my work, but the area is very busy with walkers and dogs. Is the badgers set likely to be in a very quiet corner, or do they tolerate a certain amount of human/dog activity?
Adam
Hi Adam – welcome and thank you!
I’m going to hedge my bets, and say that it depends. I think that given a choice, badgers are like most wild creatures and would rather not be disturbed. They can, however, put up with quite a lot of human activity. I know of badger setts that are only feet away from busy footpaths on the edge of towns. The badgers have been there for years, so they can’t mind it too much. And then there are increasing numbers of urban badgers that literally live in people’s back gardens.
I suppose they must get used to human (and dog) scent in the area, and I suspect that if they don’t get disturbed during the night then they won’t be too bothered. I remember reading somewhere about the effects of disturbance on the times that badgers emerge from the sett, and that badgers in areas that get disturbed during the day tend to come out later, but they still came out.
But after all this, the best thing to do is to find out for sure. Have a look round and see if you can find the sett. If you’re finding tracks, it can’t be too far away. And after that? Well, the proper badger watching season isn’t too far off…
All the best
BWM
Hi,
I think I’ve got a badger sett in my garden under my shed. I’d noticed pathways a while ago but didn’t realise what they were and then yesterday my husband noticed a mound of soil next to the shed. There’s also a large whole going underneath and it’s exactly as you described, a sideways D shape. Our garden is a fair size and it backs onto to a wooded area. I’ll be honest, I don’t know much about badgers, but this has got me excited and willing to. learn.
Thank you,
Irene
Hi Irene
That does sound exciting. I take it you wouldn’t mind if it did turn out to be badgers? Why not try smoothing out some soil and seeing if you can get any tracks? That would help to identify the resident.
All the best
BWM
We have been woken up in the night of late by animal noises – what kind of noise would a badger make? this past week our lawn resumbles the above picture – in fact the picture is almost identical.
We know there are badges around here as we saw one a few weeks back – so tonight we will watch and see………………….
Very exciting.
Hi Ruth – welcome
Unfortunately, badgers and lawns don’t always go together, but it sounds like you’re comfortable with the idea of badgers. Other animals will also dig up lawns – squirrels and deer for instance – but badgers do like short grass. Let me know how the watching goes! I’m always a bit jealous of people who can watch badgers from their house, but then I’d have no excuse to get out and about…
As to the noise of badgers, it’s a good question. I find it very difficult to describe badger noises. The most common one is what I call ‘whickering’ (I copied the word from Ernest Neal), which is a sort of high-pitched chattering noise. Hard to describe, but it doesn’t sound like any other animal. You hear it when badgers are playing together, and it gets more strident the rougher the play gets at which point you also hear yelping noises. Badgers also snort when surprised – my first ever face to face encounter with a badger ended in a snort. One of these days I’ll take out some sound equipment and see if I can get a recording, but for the time being all I can offer is a bad description.
Stop press – I’ve just found a superb resource on badger noises by the Oxford University Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, who have done some splendid long-term badger research in Wytham Woods over the years. Have a look at http://www.wildcru.org/research/research-detail/index.php?theme=&project_id=58. They have some excellent sound recordings and have classified many different badger noises and associated behaviours. All I can say is “wow!”
All the best, and good luck watching!
BWM
So excited we have just seen badger amazing .we put out bread with peanut butter which he eat. Hopefully he will return.
The badger and a friend returned later – ate all the peanut bread and butter mixture.It was amazing how close to the patio doors he came !
Hi Ruth – that’s fantastic news! I’m glad you enjoyed the experience – and a close encounter, by the sound of it.
Does this mean you’ve got an alternative to late night TV now? Badger watching from the comfort of your sofa? I am so jealous…
All the best
BWM
Hi
Badger watch from a sofa yes!!
Last night they came so very close to us less than 3ft it was amazing.
Ruth
Watched them again last night they came so close to us – less than 3ft.It was amazing.
They love their peanut butter sandwiches soaked with a little water!!
Heather
Can’t believe that we obviously have a badger sett at the bottom of our garden! We have had signs for a long time now but didn’t recognise them. Tracks well worn across grass, snuffle holes galore and now clear dung holes clustered together near to a clear D shaped tunnel at the base of o tree on a steep sloping bank! We even had a badger in a part of the garden when it became trapped by fences we have,and pulled a hole in one to get out! We watched it doing this too. Delighted to have these residents as neighbours and will check by putting down peanut buttered bread and peanuts under stones. Fingers crossed this will confirm, next step is to try and photograph them.
Hi Heather, and welcome
It sounds like you do indeed have badgers at the bottom of the garden – these are all the textbook signs. Once again I’m slightly jealous. All I have is newts in mine!
And I’m glad to hear that you’re happy having them as neighbours. Hopefully there’ll be many fascinating evenings ahead of you.
Thanks for sharing and all the best
BWM
Found my first set this weekend at a local woodland; set dug into a sloping area with pasture within 50 yards, side on D entrance altough at the minute unsure if active
Hi Lee
That’s great – sounds like a textbook badger sett. So, any chance of tempting you away from your birds for an evening to see if there are any badgers in residence…?
All the best
BWM
Hi
Going to give it a go this weekend all being well; but being autumn those birds are high on the priority list
Let you know how it goes.
Lee
We are indispute with a builder of a hospital we are responsible for maintaining. There is a known badger sett which the builder says extends under an area of block paving. Would appreciate your comments.
Hi Bob – thanks for your comment.
I’m not sure I understand here. Is the builder looking to remove the sett? Or are they using it as a reason not to complete some work?
All the best
BWM
Hi, Love your website.
Yesterday I saw a badger in broad daylight for the first time. At 1pm in very bright sunlight in a pasture part-covered by reflecting snow high in the peak district. It emerged from hole in the field at least 100m from the nearest cover. If that wasnt strange enough on the same walk 20 mins later and at higher elevation we saw another active badger quite unconcerned about us watching. Is this normal badger behaviour? Under what circumstances do badgers do this. It certainly makes badger watching very easy!
Hello,sorry to trouble you.my daughter has a question from school about badgers that we can’t seem to find the answer to anywhere!The question is What are two things badgers won’t do in their sett?It would be great if you could help! Thankyoux
Hi Lydia – thanks for your message.
I can only think of one thing. Badgers don’t poo underground. They have well-used toilet sites on the surface.
I don’t know what the other thing is. They don’t hibernate, so maybe that is it.
Good luck with the homework!
All the best
BWM