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Fieldnotes: 13th June 2010 – Thunderstorms, mosquitoes and badgers

June 13, 2010 by Badger Watching Man

“I think you’d better wear your waterproof jacket” said my wife as I headed out of the door this evening.  It was good advice.  It had been a beautiful, warm day but there were ominous banks of black clouds piling up in the west.  I hurried up to the wood as it grew darker and darker.  The weather forecast was for thunderstorms, and so far it seemed to be accurate.

There’s an old country rhyme about which trees are safe to shelter under during a thunderstorm:

Beware the Oak, it draws the stroke
Beware the Ash, it draws the flash
But under the thorn, you’ll come to no harm

I thought about the rhyme as I walked through a mixed wood of mature oak and ash trees on the top of the tallest hill in the area.  I hoped it wasn’t true.

I settled down at the east end of the sett from a spot where the outer holes are visible across a small ravine.  The spot isn’t perfect – it’s not possible to see the holes in the undergrowth at the top of the small rise on which the sett lies, and it’s quite far away so you really need binoculars – but it’s the best place to get a view of this end of the sett.

I sat in the gathering gloom, with only the mosquitoes for company.  Mosquitoes don’t bother you when you’re in a tree, only when you’re on the ground.  I don’t think mosquitoes fly upwards very well.  My normal summer badger watching clothes include a thick moleskin shirt, thick cotton trousers and head net.  They can get a little warm, but they’re mozzie proof.  The trouble is, the little horrors go for exposed areas such as ankles and hands.  They even bite through socks and the thin camouflage gloves I usually wear.  I regularly wear wellies and thick fleece gloves in summer, not to keep warm but to protect myself from the mosquitoes.*

In a spirit of scientific recording (and having nothing else to do at the time) I photographed a mosquito biting me through my camouflage gloves.

Mosquito bitingAnd then I squished it.

At 8.16 a badger appeared from one of the visible holes.  It trotted quickly to the large latrine site and then hurried back underground.  By this time it was too dark for photographs.  At 8.30 another badger came out of another hole and did the same thing.  Ten minutes or so later, both badgers (or different ones) came out together.  There was still no real social behaviour: the badgers seemed distracted or on edge somehow.

At that moment the heavens opened with a downpour of epic monsoon proportions.  Both badgers disappeared underground, sensible beasts that they are.  I had no desire to stay in this sort of rain, so I left too.  At least there was no need for stealth – the noise of the rain drowned out any sounds I made.  I was feeling a little smug to be wearing my jacket but I still got soaked.  The footpath goes through a field of oilseed rape, which is chest-high and flopping over the path.  You don’t so much walk along the path as swim through the rape.  After the downpour it was like walking through a huge, green, soaking scrubbing-brush.  Soaked to the skin from the waist down I plodded home as the thunder rumbled overhead.  Never mind – I’m a rough, tough badger watcher and I can cope with getting a little wet.  Besides, it’s probably time my badger watching clothes got a good wash…

*In British colonial times, officials in India and Africa were issued with canvas ‘mosquito boots’ for just this purpose.  Perhaps I’ll see if they’re still made anywhere.

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Fieldnotes:12th June 2010 – England 1-USA 1, Badgers 1-BWM 1

June 13, 2010 by Badger Watching Man

Today was the day of the long-awaited first England game of the World Cup.  All over the country, people have been putting flags on their cars, buying HD televisions and stocking up with crates of lager.  After weeks of anticipation, England faced the US this evening and everything else came to a standstill.

I’ve never much cared about football myself.  Don’t get me wrong, I’d like England to win – I’m as patriotic as the next chap – I just have other things to do instead.  Most people think I’m mad for doing what I do.  Fair enough.  I think they’re mad for getting so worked up over a game.  Let’s just agree to disagree.

The weather was warm and clear, so while everyone else was glued to their TV sets, I walked through our eerily deserted village for an evening of lurking in the woods.  My badger watching has not been very successful this season, so I was pleased when a badger came out of one of the middle holes at 8.02pm.  It disappeared underground fairly soon after though.

At 8.16 another badger came out of one of the western holes, and again went back fairly quickly.  I don’t think I disturbed them. There was very little wind, and what there was, was in the right direction.  The badgers were just not interested in hanging around.

At 8.45 I saw the elder bushes in the centre part of the eastern end of the sett shaking and rustling.  Through the binoculars I could see another badger ambling around in the cover of the undergrowth.  Shortly after 9.00, the badger from the middle hole came out and headed off eastwards, followed a few minutes later by the one from the western hole.

It wasn’t a totally wasted evening.  I saw the badgers (or some of them, at least) and I know that they’re active in all parts of the sett.  But I still haven’t seen any cubs yet, and I haven’t seen any real social behaviour from the badgers this year.  In previous years they would sit around and play and groom together, up to twelve badgers in a big group.  This year I’ve only seen individual badgers with very little interaction.  They may be doing it out of sight, or there may be something odd going on.  I don’t know.  I’m still trying to get to grips with the badgers.  In football terms, let’s call the evening a draw.  Badgers 1 – BWM 1.

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What time do badgers come out?

June 3, 2010 by Badger Watching Man

BadgerWatching badgers, in theory, should be quite simple.  All you need to do is to find an active sett and be there (suitably downwind and out of sight) when the badgers come out in the evening.  I’ve covered the first part – finding an active sett – in an earlier post (see How to Recognise a Badger Sett).  Now I’ll say a little about the second part – when the badgers come out of their sett.

Badgers are nocturnal: they sleep during the day and are active at night.  They emerge from their sett in the evening to play, socialise and forage.  Unfortunately for the badger watcher they don’t come out at exactly the same time every evening.  They vary  the time of emergence from day-to-day and month to month.

Generally speaking, the time that badgers come out is governed by the time of sunset, earlier in winter and later in summer.  It is a little more complicated than this though, as they will often emerge while it is still light.  Badgers need enough time to find food, so during the summer when nights are short they will come out before the sun has set to give them sufficient foraging time.  In winter, when the nights are longer and the badgers are less active, they will emerge well after dark.

There are other factors that affect the time of emergence though.  Neal and Cheeseman, in the classic book Badgers, list a number of these. For example, badgers will come out later when there is more light.  Those in a sett that catches the light of the setting sun may well emerge later than those in a sett that is in shadow.  Nights when there is a bright moon may also mean the badgers come out later.

Weather plays a role too.  Badgers may come out later in strong wind or heavy rain, probably because they cannot detect danger as well in these conditions and they feel less secure.  Linked to weather is the availability of food: damp nights are better for catching worms so the badgers may come out earlier to feed.  On the other hand, a prolonged dry spell may also see them coming out earlier as they are under pressure to find food and need to spend longer foraging.  The same may be true of sows with cubs, who according to Neal and Cheeseman are often the first to leave the sett in the evening, presumably to get as much food as possible.  Lastly, human disturbance may keep the badgers underground for longer.  Setts that are subject to regular human activity tend to emerge later.

All of this means that whilst it is possible to estimate the general time that the badgers will emerge, predicting the precise time is much more difficult.

Here’s where this blog comes in.  The  main reason for writing this blog is to provide a journal for my experiences, to record details that hopefully will prove useful at some point in the future.  Since the beginning, one of the things I have been careful to record is the time that the badgers emerge from the sett.  My hope was that by keeping track of these I’d be able to find a pattern and be able to predict their movements much more accurately.  I’ve now had a chance to look back through the archives from the last two years and plot a graph of badger emergence times at different times of year.

Each point on the graph represents a time when the first badger emerged from the sett.  To show how this varies across the year I have split the graph into half-months.  I obviously don’t do enough badger watching before April and after August!

Time when badgers come out of the sett

The first thing to notice is that there is a wide range of times in each month, so there is a lot of variation in times of emergence.  In June, for instance, the badgers have come out as early as 7.00pm and as late as nearly 9.00pm.  The 7.00pm event may have been an anomaly – it was an undersized cub that acted strangely – but there’s still a big variation.

The data set for the graph is statistically too small to support firm conclusions, but it still helps to build a picture of emergence.  For instance, it does seem that the badgers come out slightly later in May and June than they do in August.  The graph also shows that in almost all cases the badgers emerged after 7.30pm and usually around 8.00pm, so it does at least allow me to judge the time I need to arrive at the sett.

Neal and Cheeseman have a much better graph in their book, based on hundreds of observations.  Anyone interested in the subject would be well advised to have a look at it.  Nevertheless, I’m quite proud of this little graph of mine.  It’s based on my own fieldwork and the records I’ve kept of my own experiences.  If you are thinking of going to watch badgers I hope it is of some use to you in planning your visits.

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Fieldnotes: 30th May 2010 – Why do badgers move within the sett?

May 30, 2010 by Badger Watching Man

Where have all the badgers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the badgers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the badgers gone?
Hiding from me, every one
When will I ever learn?
When will I ever learn?

(Apologies to Pete Seeger)

x

I promised myself that I wouldn’t go badger watching this evening.  I really did.  And yet somehow 7.45pm saw me sitting in my favourite tree looking out over the sett.  My recent visits had only whetted my appetite to find out what the badgers were doing and to check that they were OK.  Be warned – badger watching is addictive – don’t start!

The wind was in just the right direction, although a little strong, and I had high hopes that I’d see more of the badgers.  I was at the west end of the sett, facing a cluster of obviously active holes.  But the evening wore on, as they say, and no badgers appeared.  Finally, at 9.00pm exactly, I heard badgers whickering from within the undergrowth in the middle of the sett.  Even at this time of year, this tangle of nettles and elder forms an almost impenetrable screen and the holes inside it can’t be seen from any angle.  I caught a glimpse through the leaves of a couple of badgers that might, from their boisterous behaviour, have been cubs, but I wouldn’t like to bet on it.  If the badgers have taken up residence in this middle part of the sett it might explain why I haven’t seen much of them on the last two nights.

This movement of badgers within the sett is one of the big questions I have about badger behaviour, but after four years of watching and studying them I’m still no nearer to an answer.  The main sett I watch is a big one, with maybe a dozen or so active holes at any one time.  But the badgers move between these holes, not just from year to year but from week to week.  I’m sure that I could class the west end of the sett as an outlying sett to the larger east end, but it seems to have its own residents most of the time, just as the east end has too.  But are there really resident badgers in each end, or do they move randomly between them?  And sometimes, like now, the badgers will move to one end or the other.  What is it that determines which holes an individual badger uses, and why don’t they all live together all of the time?  I can understand pregnant sows moving away from the rest to have the space and security of their own burrow, but why is there this distribution across holes for the rest of them?  I suspect it has something to do with clan relationships and hierarchy, but I honestly don’t know.  Perhaps someone has done a study on it.  If I could reliably identify individual badgers I could start to understand it more, but I’m still rubbish at recognising them.

Anyway, there I was, sitting in my tree and getting colder as the light faded.  I didn’t fancy staying up there until it got dark with only a limited chance of seeing the badgers.  Sod it.  If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, the badger watcher will have to go to the badgers.

I climbed down and crept as quietly as I could in a big circle around to a point where I could see the holes at the east end of the sett.  There were still not badgers in sight, but the odd yip told me they were still in the middle of the undergrowth somewhere.  The clouds were gathering and darkness was drawing in.  Defeated, I turned for home.

I am definitely not going badger watching tomorrow.  I’m going to do what normal people do for a change.  I’m going to stay at home, get a Chinese takeaway and sit and watch TV with my wife.

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Fieldnotes: 29th May 2010 – All the gear and no idea

May 29, 2010 by Badger Watching Man

“Any damn fool can be uncomfortable.”  So said a wise person once about roughing it outdoors.  In other words, the art is to make the experience as pleasant as possible, no matter what the conditions.  I heard this advice about 20 years ago and I’ve taken it to heart ever since.  I spent this evening up in a tree, sitting comfortably on an inflatable cushion and drinking hot tea from the flask, my camouflage umbrella close at hand in case of rain.  I was very comfortable indeed, thank you.  This was badger watching with style.  Unfortunately, having all the gear doesn’t make you a better naturalist, as I found out.

I was back at the west end of the sett, the opposite end to last night.  The holes at this end show lots of signs of activity: fresh spoil and pieces of discarded bedding.  Unfortunately, the badgers didn’t make an appearance from here.  I expected the badgers to appear about the same time as last night – 8.30pm or so – but no badgers emerged until 9.15 when a lone individual wandered out of the east end and disappeared into the wood.  I waited, but for a long 20 minutes no other badgers came out.  This was most unusual – I started wondering if something had happened to them.  Finally, another badger emerged from the centre part of the sett and slowly foraged away through the trees, occasionally snapping up worms or other tidbits.   After another 10 minutes, as it was getting dark, another pair of badgers came out of the middle hole.  No badgers came out of the holes at the west end, at least not before I left for home, and I didn’t see any cubs.

I’m not sure why the badgers were so late to come out. I don’t think I’d disturbed them.  It had been raining heavily all day, and badgers don’t like heavy rain (some people think this is because the noise of rain makes them nervous because it stops them from hearing what’s going on) but the rain had died off by the evening.  On the other hand, they do like damp nights because it makes foraging easier and more productive, so they should have been keen to get out and about.  All the signs are that the sett is happy and healthy, so perhaps it was just one of those nights.  Perhaps the badgers just decided to have a lie-in.

It wasn’t a wasted evening, though.  No evening in the woods is ever wasted.  The local buzzard was on good form, swooping through the trees and crying from the high branches.  A pair of fallow deer walked past my tree, browsing on the lush new foliage.  A fox (a healthy, non-mangy one) spent a few minutes sniffing around the sett before trotting off across the fields; and just before I left a tawny owl perched on a tree in front of me, calling for five minutes before gliding away, accompanied by the pink-pink-pink alarm calls of blackbirds.

A very comfortable evening, but as always seems to be the case, I’ll need to spend a few more at the sett before I find out what the badgers are up to.

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Fieldnotes: 28th May 2009 – A brief badger encounter

May 28, 2010 by Badger Watching Man

I made a quick visit to the wood this evening, after work.  A pleasant, dry evening, with a cuckoo calling from the fields and a light breeze stirring the leaves.

On a hunch I sat out at the east end of the sett.  This is the less visible side of the sett, which is on a low rise in the ground so it is impossible to see right across it from this end, while the jungle of nettles and elder bushes obscures the centre of the sett.  The badgers could hardly have chosen a more private spot if they tried.  Nevertheless, there are a couple of active holes that are visible on the edge of the hill, plus a well-used ‘play area’, where the badgers have worn the ground smooth and bare of leaf litter.  I particular, they seem to like to run round and round one of the trees, judging from the polished soil.

At 8.35 an adult badger emerged from one of the holes and trotted off into the nettles in the centre of the sett.  It didn’t reappear, nor did any others.  After half an hour I called it a day and crept slowly off.  I didn’t see any cubs but at least I saw a badger – it’s been a while.  As a consolation I sat at the bottom of the pasture field and watched a fox wandering backwards and forwards hunting insects.  It was a particularly mangy individual, which is unusual around here.  I wonder if it is one of the cubs I watched last year?

Altogether a slightly frustrating evening, but enjoyable nonetheless.  There is something strangely pleasant about sitting quietly in a wood or in a field, even if you don’t see much.  I’ll go back to my usual spot at the west end of the sett as soon as I can and see if I can get a better view of things.

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Wildest Hide and Seek – your chance to join in with a wildlife survey

May 26, 2010 by Badger Watching Man

I’m always happy to help out with spreading awareness of wildlife-related projects, so here is one that is worth looking at – one that everyone can join in with.  The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) is asking people across the UK to help with their ‘Wildest Hide & Seek’ study, which is looking at the effects wetlands may have on the range of wildlife found nearby.

In true ‘Hide & Seek’ fashion, participants will need to spend some time hiding quietly in their garden or nearest open space, followed by a few minutes of seeking and recording the wildlife they see.

The UK-wide study is investigating whether having a pond or other wetland in gardens, local parks, school grounds and allotments affects the range of animals found there. The survey takes place between Friday 21st and Monday 31st May and marks the International Year of Biodiversity.

As a big ‘Thank You’, those who take part will also receive a 2 for 1 voucher for entry to their local WWT centre.

Martin Spray, CEO of the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, explains:

“We’re asking people to spend one hour looking for fourteen species such as hedgehogs, foxes, kingfishers, frogs and dragonflies which will give us a guide to the health of wildlife habitats. Some animals might be spotted relatively easily, however some may hide under rocks or logs so we do encourage people to be inquisitive!”

The feedback will help to paint a picture of what habitats are like across the country and will be very useful to our research work as well as the work we do to protect wetlands and wildlife worldwide.”

To find out more about how to take part, and to download a survey guide, go to http://bit.ly/wwt_hideandseek

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This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England

May 25, 2010 by Badger Watching Man

Scarlett in BluebellsNow, May has to be one of the best months, if not the best month, in the badger watcher’s calendar.  The evenings are getting longer and warmer, the badgers are coming out while it is still light, giving you great views, and the year’s cubs are out and getting playful and adventurous.

So how come things have been so quiet around here lately?  Why no new posts?  Frankly, Badger Watching Man, you don’t seem to be living up to your name at the moment.

I must confess that I haven’t been near any badgers at all in May.  I’ve not been home.  I spent a week in Egypt on business and then a couple of days later we went off on a family holiday to Turkey.  I’ve gazed in wonder at the ancient, riddle-haunted Valley of the Kings and walked paths in the parched and aeon-shadowed hills of Thebes that were old when Stonehenge was built.  I’ve sailed on the warm, blue waters of the Mediterranean, brushing up on spinnaker and catamaran techniques under the bright sun where Herodotus and Alexander the Great once sailed.

And now I’m home, back to the green fields and leafy hedgerows of Bedfordshire.  And you know what?  It’s nice to go away to hot places, but it’s nice to be back home too.  This really is a green and pleasant land.

More badgery stuff soon, I promise.  I’m itching to see if there are cubs at the sett.

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House Martins

April 28, 2010 by Badger Watching Man

Here you go.  Here’s another one of those short diary posts.  At the weekend, my wife and I were discussing the House Martins that nest every year in the eaves of our house, and trying to remember when they usually return from migration.  Neither of us really knew – an unpardonable gap in our knowledge – so I said I’d make a note of the date when it happened.

Well, we were out feeding the chickens yesterday and there, flying around the garden, were the House Martins.  The plucky little chaps have made it all the way back from southern Africa where they overwinter, all the way back to our own corner of Bedfordshire.

Are they late or early this year?  I have no idea.  But at least I’ll know when to expect them next year.

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Fieldnotes: 25th April 2010 – A quiet evening at the wood

April 26, 2010 by Badger Watching Man

Primroses in the wood

Primroses in the wood

What a difference a couple of weeks makes!  I’ve been busy with various (non-badger) things for a couple of weeks so I haven’t been able to get out until last night.  But things have changed since I last went out to the wood.  The leaves on the trees are starting to show, the blackthorn is in full flower and the woodland flowers are blooming.  The weather is noticeably warmer (i.e. not freezing!) and the birds are starting to sing as they begin their search for a mate.

The wheat field that I walk through on the way to the wood is not a wheat field any more.  This year it is planted with oilseed rape and the first yellow flowers are already out (the field behind my house is rape too, and the scent this evening when I went out to feed the chickens is marvelous.  It can become overpowering later in the year but at the moment it smells like spring and its nice).  This field has been wheat for the last two years, and it’s been a food source for (I think) at least three different clans of badgers.  I wonder how it will affect them now the food source has gone?  I imagine that the badgers won’t be so keen to try to annexe it as territory, but I’ll see what happens.  Unless badgers each oilseed rape, of course…

I arrived at the sett at about 7.45pm.  The tawny owls hooted and ‘ke-wicked’ and the first woodpecker of the year yaffled away somewhere behind me.  It’s good to get back into the wood.  I spend so much time rushing about at work that it’s a real luxury to just sit and listen and watch and do nothing.

It is a good time of year to be watching badgers at the moment, for two reasons.  Firstly because the undergrowth has not yet grown up.  Later in the year the nettles and elder will block a lot of the views at this sett, but for now it is possible to look across the whole area.  Secondly, and more importantly, this year’s cubs will be emerging about now.  I can tell myself that I want to see cubs because it allows me to judge the success of the clan, but if I’m honest I want to see them because they’re cute, especially when they’re finding their feet outside the sett for the first time.

There were six active sett entrances visible from where I was sitting, so the badgers are still active.  At 8.15pm an adult badger emerged at the east end of the sett, followed a few minutes later by a second.  They groomed themselves and each other for a moment and then wandered slowly around the area.  Ten minutes later they were joined by another badger from the east end and two more from the west end – all adults, no cubs.  It was too dark for pictures but light enough to see well with binoculars.

I didn’t stay long.  I had to go to work the next day so I couldn’t stay late.  The badgers seemed relaxed and happy, and at least I know that there are at least five adults still in residence.  The next few weeks will be busy for me too, but I’ll try to get out again soon.  The evenings are lengthening and I hope there will be cubs out in the next week or two.

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