Badger Beds and Close-up Tawny

We have captured some great footage at Yew View this week. After the excitement of the hornet nest, I settled in the office to look through the week's footage. All the cameras record 24-7 , so I look through footage and lift the interesting bits to save, upload and share.

Peggy has used the badger sett on and off this week. She obviously just sleeps all day, getting up occasionally for a comfort break. To show the process, I videoed the playback on fast-forward , to show how she moves around.....

It is just fascinating to watch her chill in there. A standard, natural badger chamber would not be this big, and she seems to enjoy the space sometimes. She seems very relaxed and comfortable there, often stretching out, upside down!

I do put straw out sometimes for her to use as bedding. This week she spent some time pulling leaves in for a comfortable bed. I merged some videos together, showing her doing this. Many of us see bedding collection above ground, but rarely get to see what happens underground!

Once that bed is made, it's time to settle down and sleep... badgers do a lot of that!

We are hoping she is going to stick around as it is so special to be able to watch her.

We have a camera outside of this sett. There are small lights, which come on at night. This week, we were treated to a couple of muntjac coming past. These two actually appeared as I was sitting at the PC!

With the original tawny box cleared of the hornet nest, I am wondering if my pair have already decided that they are going to use the box at the other end of the site, overlooking the river. We call this one 'Owl Mansion' as it is much larger and was actually designed for barn owls.

I managed to adjust the focus of the camera as they seem to stand much closer than I had originally anticipated. The joy of these new IP cameras is that I can adjust focus remotely from the PC. This is a game changer for me. Previously, once you had decided on the focus, there was no changing it.

With the focus correct, the true capabilities of this camera are realised. This box has no internal lighting yet and the light inside is just from the entrance, at the top of the box. The clarity is fantastic! Sometimes, she is a bit too close... and I am talking just cm from the dome, at which point I lose a bit of focus, but on the whole I am very pleased with how this is looking.

I also lifted some stills from these clips.....

The intelligent IR on this camera means that, unless she is really close to the camera, there is no burn-out. This paddling is her testing out the substrate on the base of the box and is always a good sign...

I wonder what wildlife this next week will bring?