Using a red filtered torch to watch for badgers coming into the garden for peanuts is becoming a nightly ritual. The problem is judging just when they will arrive.
A week ago we put out a camera that would record what was happening through the late evening, at night, and early morning. There have been a number of surprises – one was the numbers of badgers coming in. One night, just after midnight, there were seven of them just outside the end of the house. There was no competition between them at any time, and the only contacts we recorded were two badgers grooming each other and a pair mating. Another highlight was when an adult brought in two cubs and they all tucked into the peanuts. Only once did we see a badger drink from the bird bath on the ground.
One night, five badgers were feeding when they suddenly ran off out of sight. The reason? A fox with a superb brush had walked through the area. But it did not stop and after a few minutes the badgers re-appeared and continued feeding as if nothing had happened.
The bait stations are under small fruit trees and on one tree, two metres off the ground, we had placed a feeder filled with peanuts for the red squirrels. On the fourth night, when all the bait stations were finished, one badger decided to go for this feeder. It was almost comical to watch it keep falling off the trunk and landing on its back. Another persisted until it broke the perspex front of the feeder and the peanuts came tumbling out, to be quickly devoured by both animals. On another occasion we saw a badger climb up the branches to the top of the feeder to attack the contents from above.
Each night a roe deer doe came in to feed on the apples we put out but the badgers totally ignored her, perhaps because she was not looking her best – she had only half moulted into her rich red summer coat and was looking decidedly scruffy.
