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Fieldnotes: 11th April 2010 – More night vision results

April 11, 2010 by Badger Watching Man

Spring is definitely here.  The weekend has been clear, sunny and warm.  The vegetable garden is coming along nicely, the trees and hedgerows are coming into bud, and last night was the first of the year when you got that lovely smell of vegetation and growing things in the air.  But we shouldn’t forget that we’re still in what my Dad calls the ‘blackthorn winter’, the cold snap that often accompanies the flowering of the blackthorn.  On Friday I scraped the ice of my car before I set off to work.  Tonight I went out to the badger sett and nearly froze myself.

My days follow a consistent pattern at the moment.  Every evening at 7.00pm I give Scarlett her bath, feed her and put her to bed.  The days have grown sufficiently long now for me to be able to follow my usual routine and walk the mile or so up to wood before it gets dark.  And that’s what I did tonight.  I wanted to try the night vision scope again and check the effects on the badgers.

I settled down at the base of a tree.  Badger watching means always having the wind in your face.  Tonight, there was a bitterly cold wind knifing through the leafless trees.  It was one of those evenings when I put on my camouflage face veil; not to keep out of sight, but merely to try to keep warm.  At 8.21pm a badger trotted over from the eastern end of the sett and went down into a hole in front of me.  A few minutes later it reappeared, and soon there were four badgers scratching and rolling and play-fighting in front of me.

(One of the main reasons for writing this blog is to document and journal my badger watching experiences so that I can look for patterns.  One of the things I always try to record is the time at which the badgers emerge from the sett. Interestingly, if I look back in the archives to last year, I see that I visited this sett on the 10th April 2009, almost exactly a year ago.  On that occasion the badgers emerged at 8.20pm, almost exactly the same time.  When I get a chance I’ll have to make a chart of emergence times and see if there is a consistent pattern across the year.)

There was still just enough light to see by, but I turned on the NV scope and watched for a reaction from the badgers.  There was none.  They carried on playing and grooming happily.  I gave them a few minutes and then turned on the infra-red illuminator.  Again, no reaction.  I could see the badgers eyeshine from the infra-red, but they didn’t seem in the least bothered.  At random intervals for the next ten minutes I turned the NV and infra-red on and off, but the badgers carried on regardless. After a while the badgers romped away out of view, and I took this as my cue to leave.  I had seen what I wanted to and I was happy to head back towards the light and warmth of home.

Based on tonight’s watching, the badgers did not react to either the NV scope or the infra-red.  In fact, the NV scope proved to be a very useful aid to watching as it grew dark.  This was the opposite of my earlier experiences. Does this mean that I was mistaken about the badgers being spooked by the infra-red?  I don’t think so.  I’ve been watching badgers too long for that.  Let me try a few more evenings like this and I’ll see if I can come to some sort of conclusion.

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More Stoats

April 9, 2010 by Badger Watching Man

I have a fascination with stoats.  They are cute, lethal, little predators.  Last Saturday I drove the long way home from the library in town, along the little country lanes rather than the main road.  I’m glad I did, because I came across a stoat on the roadside verge.  It was dancing around in true stoat style, and I got a good, if brief view as I passed.  This was a couple of miles away from my house, but it shows that stoats are active in the area.

This morning, my wife came across a dead stoat at the end of our road – another road casualty.  Being a good wife, she took a picture on her phone and showed it to me (we obviously share an unhealthy interest in roadkill…) and it was definitely a stoat, right down to the black tip on its tail.  Weasels lack this black tip.

It’s a shame, as this is the second stoat killed on the road in this spot that I know about.  On the plus side, it does mean that we have a population in the area.  Despite wandering around here regularly on my Sunday walks I have yet to come across a stoat in it’s natural habitat.  This has to be a definite goal for this year – to find and observe a stoat – even if it means sitting out all day.  Sooner or later I’ll spot one.

Posted in That's not a badger! | Tagged | 4 Comments »

Tales From the Wood gets political

April 7, 2010 by Badger Watching Man

Normally I don’t have much to do with politics.  At best I look on the whole process with a sort of idle, morbid curiosity.  However, I have noticed that general elections seem to coincide with politicians paying some interest to the views of the people they represent (put it this way, the last time I heard anything from my MP was during the last election.  Go figure!)  Perhaps there is some chance that we will be listened to at the moment.  Perhaps not, but it is a good time to try.

Today, I received an e-mail from the Badger Trust.  It seems that the Conservative Party has promised to carry out a cull of badgers if they are elected.  The Trust has asked all of its members to contact their Conservative Party candidate to ask them to clarify their position and to request that they re-examine their policy.  They have thoughtfully put together a summary of the science behind the issue if you are not sure what to write.  Drop me a line at badgerwatchingman@googlemail.com if you’d like a copy.

I think that this is an excellent idea.  I have taken the opportunity to e-mail Nadine Dorries, our MP here in Mid Bedfordshire, and I urge others to do the same to their candidates.

Dear Nadine

You very kindly offered on your website to listen to what people have to say, so I hope you can answer my question.  I’m sure you’re busy at the moment, what with the election and everything, but as one of your of Mid Beds constituents this is important to me.  I’m writing to ask what is the Conservative policy (and your own personal opinion) on the proposed badger cull in an effort to control bovine TB (bTB).

The thing is, I’ve spent a good few years now studying the badgers of Mid Bedfordshire.  Like you, I keep a blog.  Mine is about badgers (www.badgerwatcher.com).  I am concerned that the Conservative Party has promised to go ahead with another badger cull if they are elected.  Perhaps you could confirm or deny this?

I am obviously concerned for the welfare of our native wildlife, but I am more concerned that an ill-conceived cull will be launched against the weight of scientific evidence.  A 10-year £50million taxpayer-funded research programme  by the Independent Scientific Group (ISG) concluded that a badger cull would have no meaningful impact on the bTB epidemic and that on a comparatively local scale it could make matters worse (as happened when reactive culling was carried out as part of the randomised badger culling trial).  bTB has continued to rise despite previous badger culls (the example from Ireland is relevant here), and at best, a badger cull would be an expensive, senseless slaughter that will do little to alleviate a problem perpetuated (if not caused) by questionable modern farming practices.

So please could you take the time to let me know whether the Conservative Party intend to go ahead with a cull, and what your personal stance on the matter is.  I am sure that my readers will be interested to know.

Many thanks

BWM

Like I said, I rarely get involved in politics and I certainly don’t want to turn this blog into a political forum.  I have no particular allegiance to any political party. Nevertheless, like most people, I’m feeling the frustration of being governed by politicians who are wholly out of touch with the views of the people they are supposed to represent and besides, this is an issue close to my heart.

I’ll keep you posted if and when I get a response.

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Road Casualty

April 4, 2010 by Badger Watching Man

In my last post I said that I got closer to a live badger than ever before.  The emphasis on ‘live’ was deliberate.  One of the more onerous tasks I set myself is monitoring dead badgers in the area, particularly road casualties.  We had another dead badger on the road today, about a mile from my house and just down the road from the wood where most of the casualties have occurred over the past two years.

For the record, the badger was male and seemingly in the pride of life.  It measured 73com from nose to base of tail, so slightly smaller than average.  From the state of its teeth it was relatively young, or at least not elderly (I’m not very good at telling the age of mammals – immature ones are significantly smaller than the average adult size, and very old ones tend to have bad teeth, but this still leaves a large gap in between.  I’ll have to see if there are any more clues to age to look for).  Near the badger was a very well worn path crossing the road between the wood and some pasture fields, so this is obviously a regular route to the feeding grounds.  One of these days I really must get permission to enter these woods, as there is at least one and probably two active setts in there.

Posted in Fieldnotes | 3 Comments »

Fieldnotes: 3rd April 2010 – Close Encounter!

April 3, 2010 by Badger Watching Man

Thanks very much to everyone who has commented on the badgers and infra-red debate.  I’m sorry I haven’t had the time to reply to you individually, but your comments really are appreciated.

To tell the truth, I’ve been busy lately with work, social events and general pater familias stuff.  In particular, I’ve been busy knocking my poor neglected vegetable garden into shape.  Let me be more specific – I’ve been dashing out and working in the garden in between the freezing downpours, only to dash indoors again when the next one comes along.  It may officially be spring, but we’ve had a lot of cold, nasty, squally weather lately.  But tonight I braved the weather to go to the badger sett, and I’m pleased that I did – I had a great experience to kick off the badger watching season.

I arrived at the wood at about 8.20pm, by which time it was getting dark.  The wet weather has turned the ploughed fields into sticky, sucking mud.  I started the walk looking like a dapper country gent.  I entered the wood looking like a First World War soldier returning from a gruelling stint in the trenches.  Never mind, it’s still nice to get outdoors.

Regular readers will know that I prefer, when possible, to watch badgers from a tree.  It gets you above them and you get a better view without having to worry as much about scent or badgers blundering into you.  To be honest, though, climbing a tree in the dark while wearing muddy wellies is a complete pain, so I elected to sit at the base a tree, facing the sett with the wind in my face so my scent wouldn’t be carried to the badgers.

My plan was to try to observe the badgers using the night vision (NV) scope, both in passive mode and with infra-red, and see if there was any pattern to their responses.  At 8.50pm I heard the unmistakable sound of scratching from the sett that meant that a badger was above ground.  There was still a little light, so I was able to use the NV scope without the infra-red.  There, by the sett, was a badger.  Success!  A moment later it ambled off.  So far, so inconclusive.  It may have been disturbed by the NV scope, it may have just been a badger with things to do.  I sat and waited.

About 10 minutes later there was a scuffling noise from the sett.  I raised the scope to see what it was.

(At this point, I should confess that I have a strange and irrational fantasy fear about using the NV scope.  I worry that one day I’ll be sitting happily in a dark but otherwise peaceful wood.  I raise the scope to my eye, and there, sitting no more than 10 feet away, is a tiger – of which I was previously blissfully unaware.  It’s wholly irrational, I know, but sitting alone in a dark wood does strange things to your mind after a while.  Once the thought entered my mind I couldn’t seem to get rid of it.)

In this case, I raised the scope to see three badgers running full pelt directly towards me.  You have to understand that I’m used to watching badgers from a tree, not from the ground.  I’m not used to seeing badgers from this angle – full frontal, face to face and eye to eye – let alone three of them, nose to tail and running full speed at me.  It was a new experience, and a very impressive one.

At the last moment, just when I thought the badgers would run straight into me, they stopped.  They were no more than three feet away and clearly visible in the twilight.  I hardly dared to breathe.  Two of the badgers started having sex right in front of me (what is it with me, badgers and sex!?), while the third starting sniffing towards my wellies.  If I had leaned forward I could have tickled any one of them behind the ears.  After 30 heart-stopping seconds they sensed my presence somehow and dashed off towards the sett, except one brave fellow who came back to within a few feet of me and circled round, sniffing, before running off.

What a fantastic experience!  I think this is the closest I’ve ever been to a live badger, and it was absolutely breathtaking.  In one way I had broken my cardinal rule of badger watching – I had let the badgers become aware of my presence.  These badgers are absolutely wild and unaccustomed to humans, and I’ve taken pains to keep them this way. On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Despite all my scientific theorising, I still find the sight of badgers to be both thrilling and compelling.  I’ve said it before, there is something about an encounter with badgers that has an effect on people, and this was a very close encounter.  It was a great way to start the badger watching year.

And the effect of the NV scope on the badgers?  The scope was on (in passive mode) during the whole encounter and the badgers showed no signs of noticing me until the very last moment, to the extent of returning to check me out more closely.  This was nothing like the fear I’ve observed when using the infra-red at a far greater distance, which suggests that the scope itself doesn’t bother them.  I’ll need to experiment further to see if the infra-red provokes any consistent responses.  After my close encounter I didn’t have the heart to risk disturbing the badgers any more tonight, and I quietly left them to go about their business.

Posted in Fieldnotes | Tagged | 4 Comments »

Fieldnotes: 13th March 2010 – Another night session

March 14, 2010 by Badger Watching Man

After pondering the infra-red question for a week, I decided to try and get some answers in the field.  I decided to pay another visit to the sett, to observe the badgers as best as I could without using the infra-red and then, once I was sure that the badgers were comfortable and that there was nothing I was doing that was disturbing them, I would turn on the IR and observe any reactions.

It was a great plan.  The problem is, to paraphrase Helmuth von Moltke, no plan survives contact with badgers.  I made my way through the wood as stealthily as possible and arrived at the sett by 8.00pm.  Unlike last week, when the weather was very clear, the night was quite cloudy.  This meant that there was more of a glow in the sky – the horrid orange reflections of the streetlights in distant towns.  This glow was enough to make it possible to use the night vision scope in passive mode, without the infra-red illuminator.  There was just enough light for it to work properly – I could see trees, undergrowth and the spoil heaps of the sett.

Unfortunately I couldn’t see any badgers.  I waited for 40 minutes but saw and heard nothing.  If the badgers had come out I would have seen them.  Maybe they were frightened by my approach, but I don’t think so.  Maybe they had left already and were out foraging.  Maybe they didn’t emerge until after I had left.

It was a pleasant enough evening, listening to the lambs in the field and the tawny owls in the wood behind me, but I didn’t get to test my theory.  I’ll try again next week and see what happens.

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Can badgers see infra-red? Part 2

March 14, 2010 by Badger Watching Man

For anyone who has any questions about wildlife in Britain there is a fabulous resource that’s free and available to anyone.  This is the Wild About Britain website, and in particular the forums there.  You can ask any question and get an answer from a huge range of experts and enthusiasts.

I asked the question about badgers being able to see the infra-red light from my night vision scope, and one response seemed to match my experiences exactly.  This is from a WAB member called stripee:

Yes they can see it and always react. Some more nervously than others. I have a night vision scope with infra red. The badgers, foxes etc don’t like it shone in their eyes. I try to shine it for short periods and not directly at them.

If you look at your scope when the red light is on from the front it can be seen for a long distance at a certain angle. I had heard that badgers don’t see red light, but it just isn’t true.

This is good.  This backs up what I have observed.  It isn’t scientific proof yet, but it adds to the anecdotal evidence.

I’ll keep searching and see what else I can find out.  In the meantime I’ll also try some informal experiments  and see if I can get some more evidence.   There are more formal experiments that could be done to prove the matter one way or another (I’m thinking of a version of the Skinner Box with an infra-red stimulus) but I’d need a fairly captive population of badgers to try it on.  If any biology students are looking for an idea for a project, let me know…

Posted in Thoughts and Musings | Tagged , , | 5 Comments »

Can badgers see infra-red? Calling all badger experts

March 7, 2010 by Badger Watching Man

This is an open question to any and all badger experts out there.  Can badgers see infra-red?

I’ve used my night vision scope twice now (see Fieldnotes: 25th July 2009 – First night vision session and Fieldnotes: 6th March 2010 – A frosty night at the badger sett).  On both occasions the badgers have been visibly spooked, presumably by the infra-red light.  Of course, this is purely anecdotal evidence – I haven’t done any sort of scientific study – but I’ve spent enough hours watching badgers to know when one is disturbed by something, and all the ones I’ve seen through the night vision scope have indeed been disturbed.

Of course, it might not necessarily be the infra-red.  The night vision scope (it’s a Bresser, by the way) may be doing something else to frighten the badgers.  It may make a noise that is inaudible to us but audible to badgers, for instance.  I don’t know.

So, has anyone had experience of using a night vision scope to watch badgers, particularly with an infra-red torch?  Did you notice any signs that the badgers were aware of it?  Does anyone know of any research or literature on the subject?  Does anyone know if any other animals can see in the infra-red end of the spectrum?

If you have any ideas or experiences, please do let me know.  I’ll keep searching myself and let you know if I find anything.

Thanks

BWM

Posted in Thoughts and Musings | Tagged , , | 3 Comments »

Fieldnotes: 6th March 2010 – A frosty night at the badger sett

March 7, 2010 by Badger Watching Man

When Labour MP Ron Davies was asked to explain what he was doing visiting the countryside at night in a well-known gay meeting area, he famously replied that he was ‘watching badgers’.  I mused on this as I walked through our village last night.  If for some reason I had been stopped and asked to explain what I was doing, how would I explain why I was carrying a red light and a night vision scope while wearing (among other things) a camouflage jacket and a pair of ladies’ tights?  I expect I would have weakly stammered out the same reason that Ron did.  I can’t vouch for him, but in my case it happened to be true.

It has been a while since I have seen a badger.  Partly this is due to family commitments, partly because I’ve confined my badger watching to the summer months when it is possible to observe them in daylight in the long evenings.  I’ve always tried to keep the main badger sett I watch as wild and undisturbed as possible, and for this reason I’ve never used artificial lights there.  However, I bought myself a night vision scope last year, so it should be possible to watch the badgers in complete darkness.  Everything came together at the same time – I now have time to go out in the evenings, I have the means to watch the badgers in the dark, and I had an itch to see a real, live badger again.  I know from visiting the sett in the daytime that the badgers have been busy – it was time to get out and see what they were actually doing at this time of year.

This explains why I was out after dark and why I was carrying the night vision scope.  The reason I was wearing ladies’ tights was purely and simply to keep warm.  Last night was beautifully clear – the stars of Orion were shining brightly over the wood as I walked up the hill – but it was very cold and frosty with a bitter wind that seemed to be blowing straight from the arctic circle.  If you’ve ever sat still in very cold weather then you’ll know how the cold can seep into your bones after a while.  And if you’re up a tree watching badgers then you can’t even move around to keep warm.  Hence I was wearing as much warm clothing as I could.  I got the tights for an impromptu fancy dress outfit a while ago (Superman – they’re thick, blue tights) and I was struck by how warm they were.  Despite the possible cross-dressing implications I wore them under my normal trousers, and very effective they were too – warm yet lightweight.  This may become a habit…

Arriving at the wood I picked my slowly through the trees.  I use a small red LED headtorch, which is just bright enough to see by but is less intrusive than a white light.  Badger folklore says that badgers cannot see red light very well and are not as disturbed by it.  It also adds a wonderfully other-worldly feeling when walking through a dark wood.

I arrived at the sett at 8.00pm, none too stealthily, I’m afraid.  Walking through a winter’s worth of dead leaves and fallen twigs by the light of dim torch without making a noise is pretty much impossible.  As I neared the sett I could see the red eyeshine of an animal at the edge of the torchlight – a badger!  With no real stealth at all I climbed up my favourite tree to get a good view over the sett.  I set up the night vision scope and turned off the red torch.

Now, the last time I used the night vision scope it seemed to cause a reaction in the badgers (see Fieldnotes: 25th July 2009 – First night vision session).  Although the infra-red light from the scope is supposedly invisible, the badgers seemed to be spooked by it.  Last night, the exact same thing happened.  When I looked at the badger through the scope it froze, looked straight at me and bobbed its head up and down.  This is the classic sign of a nervous badger trying to scent something that it is suspicious of.  After a few seconds it turned around and fled underground.

I am now convinced that badgers can see the infra-red light from my NV scope.  Think about it – the badger was not put off by my noisy approach, it was not put off by the red light of my headtorch, nor by the noise of my climbing the tree.  It was only when I was sitting quiet and still with my torch turned off that it bolted; and this at the exact moment I shone the infra-led light on it.  I’ve spent a lot of hours watching badgers, and the way that this one looked straight at me tells me that it was aware of me, and this could only be due to the infra-red.

I sat for 40 cold minutes to see if the badger reappeared but it didn’t.  I could hear the rhythmic scuffling noises of a badger gathering bedding from the other end of the sett, but I didn’t see anything else.  It was a little frustrating:  there I was, all dressed up, and I seemed to have scared off the only badger in sight.  I can confirm that the badgers were out at 8.00pm and that there was bedding being gathered (the east end of the sett seems to be active, based on what I heard and from inspecting the sett in the daylight) but I can’t add much more than this.

The business with the night vision scope was frustrating too.  I am sure that the badgers react to the infra-red light, and this makes it much less useful.  In fact, they seem more disturbed by the night vision scope than by an ordinary red light.  I can use the scope in ‘passive mode’ so that it gathers ambient light rather than illuminating the scene with infra-red, but it isn’t very effective in the darkness of a dark wood.

There is definitely an opportunity for more winter badger watching, but I need to sort out the night vision first…

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Sitting inside and watching the rain

February 28, 2010 by Badger Watching Man

Scarlett and I decided to give our regular Sunday walk a miss today because of the torrential rain.  For the last two days it has rained heavily, and this morning it was still pouring down.  Even with my umbrella there was no way I could take a baby out in this.

I did manage a quick stroll outside in the afternoon (on my own) to see what was happening.  Our part of Bedfordshire is known as the Greensand Ridge – it is high ground and generally sandy and well drained, with patches of clay.  I’ve never seen much flooding here before, but today there was a lot.  The ditches in the village, normally dry with a little mud in the bottom, were full to the top and overflowing the road in places. Our little brook was running to the top of its banks in many places.  Many fields were turned into lakes by the sheer volume of rainwater.  Some even had resident ducks on them.

It was generally a good day for sitting inside, drinking tea  and watching the goldfinches on the bird feeder.  I feel a little guilty for not getting outside more, but there’ll be plenty more chances now that spring is getting closer.

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