When I first moved here, just over a year ago, I felt sure that there would be badgers around in the woodlands and countryside surrounding my plot. I spent time looking for tracks and setts, setting up trail cameras and monitoring different areas to get a feel for what might be around.
When I first caught a clip of a badger passing through my land, I was delighted. Trail cam footage showed that a number of individuals seemed to be passing through my land on their nightly forages, but it seemed fairly sporadic, despite finding some latrines, which are usually an indication of a well used trail.
You can imagine my joy, about a month ago, when I started noticing some evidence of badgers around the garden, particularly on my track in. I found a space that they seemed to be using to enter my plot from the surrounding fields. A trail cam placed in front confirmed my suspicions! I had badgers coming in almost every night. Mostly one individual, sometimes two.
This seemed the perfect opportunity to try to get them close enough to the house to film. This entrance was only about 100m from the house, so I felt sure I could tempt them close, especially as their nose holes and dug up areas extended right up to the house!
I started by placing some peanuts closer to the house and set a trail camera up.....
This is the Helarctos trail camera from NatureSpy. I am reviewing it at the moment and I think it is super! No more batteries , is the way to go! I will putting up a detailed review very soon.
Here are some of the still lifted from the videos, which feature in the v YouTube video at the bottom of this post.
I then tried adding a little light with a solar light...
I was pleased to see the badger was not worried at all by it!
I then created a little space to act as a feeding station. I put some peanut butter down , peanuts and chopped apple. I started by putting the Helactos there.....
I got some lovely clips, so I knew it was worth going the whole way! Installing a mini PTZ cam (pan, tilt,zoom) I connected it up to my main monitoring system.
After a few nights, I started to introduce lighting. I mounted a spotlight on a tripod and began to move it closer each night. This badger was not fussed at all!
Now the scene was set!
This young badger, who I have named 'Mochyn' from the Welsh for badger, 'mochyn daear', meaning earth pig! She (I think it's a female) is visiting every night... usually anytime from 9pm - 10pm at the moment. I am live streaming most evenings so you can see her. The lights mean I can film in full colour!
You can see a full account, along with the videos captured, on the video below.
I am hoping that the rest of her clan discover the feast soon and that I will be able to watch these badgers from my window and film them. I also plan on setting up a hide, so I can photograph them too. Exciting times!
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