Patchy attendance

The behaviour has slightly changed over the last couple of nights with only one badger coming to visit on Tuesday evening and just two on Wednesday. Prior to that one would appear and then the others would follow but on Tuesday the lone badger had the entire box to itself. On Wednesday the two of them appeared together just after 20:00 and there was a comfortable arrangement as one went around eating the peanuts the other worked its way through the dog food in the badger box. Strangely the one eating the loose peanuts seemed to lay down and just moved its head lazily back and forth. It was obviously quite relaxed. It will be interesting to see just how early they get in their visits as it gets dark earlier and earlier. In just two weeks their visiting times have moved forwards by 90 minutes. Despite all the food being put out they obviously cannot resist the hunt for a worm or two as there are still craters being dug in the lawn on a regular basis.

Feeding stops for nothing

It was questionable whether the badgers would make it last night given the pouring rain but they did not let us down. Just after 20:00 one bedraggled looking badger (in our efforts to identify them this one seems to have a distinctive white tip to its tail, whereas Captain has the white band at the base of his tail and the other one has white splodges along its tail) appeared and began eating the peanuts. It really has been evident that the peanuts are the prize, despite the contents of the badger box, and no matter what, these are eaten first. It then did a smash and grab on lumps of bread in the box, snatching a chunk before running under the bush to eat it. Whether this was to shelter from the rain or hide from any potential predators is another question.

After ten minutes the other two emerged, there was a bit of a standoff and then the remaining peanuts were eaten before the usual fight for the badger box took place. Further reading has suggested that the males have longer, thinner tails and the females have shorter, stubbier tails and so we've been trying to use that as a guide but it's not been so straightforward. We're fairly confident Captain is a male, and the largest of the three both has the size and tale traits to be a male, with the suggestion that the third is a female. We need to spend longer studying them and finding out more about the traits of each sex, because the other identifier, head/snout size, seems very difficult to use as an indicator.

Additional food stuffs devoured:

Rice
Mince
Mushrooms
Bread

Lone pathfinder...

....or just a selfish greedy badger. Saturday night saw just one of the badgers turn up just after 20:00 and have the badger box all to itself for 20 minutes before Captain and the last badger arrived. They were fairly cordial about sharing the contents but by that time the raw eggs, baked beans and coronation chicken had all but disappeared. On Sunday two emerged together before the third popped up 5 minutes later. Their defence of the badger box is quite skillful to watch, they move their bodies like the hand on a clock, keeping their snouts firmly buried in the food, so as to block any attacking move from the other badgers. Occasionally it descends into a little fight and one gets a nip but rarely does it go beyond that. We've been trying to see if there is some sort of hierarchy amongst the three of them but there is nothing consistent. Captain showed dominance last night and held control of the badger box for a long time compared to the others but he is not the largest of the three and by no means always gets his own way. We're still waiting for the other two to show identifiable characteristics before we name them.

Nights are closing in

Despite the light rain the badgers were onsite by 20:15 last night, the same three as always, hungrily eating the peanuts before fighting over the dog food and leftover baked beans. More rump-slamming as they tried to get the treasures from the bottom of the badger box but there was clearly no interest in the new potatoes.

Dog food

You know that things are starting to get slightly out of hand when your wife greets the badger's arrival with the welcome of "Hello children," and this is only exacerbated when she returns from the shops weighed down with cans of cheap dog food.

The obligatory peanuts were scattered and then a mixture of Ryvita and dog food filled the badger box. It wasn't even 21:00 and the three of them wandered in. Strangely, given their strong sense of smell, they ensured they'd devoured all of the peanuts before investigating the badger box and the treats held within. It started gently with one nosing around in the meat, and then two of them seemed to find a happy middle ground, both snouts buried, but when the third tried to get involved it all went crazy. He bundled over the top of the other two, flopped down the other side and then Captain pushed off down the garden with his snout still deep in the box. Dog meat and Ryvita went everywhere and whilst two of them slammed their rumps into each other the remaining badger quietly snuffled his way through a pile on the grass. It took them less than ten minutes to consume the two cans of dog food and they were as close to licking the box clean as could be expected of a wild animal. I think it's safe to say they enjoyed it.

Squirrel sidebar

Not badgers but Red Squirrels....

Saturday was spent over on Brownsea Island and our expectations were low for seeing any significant wildlife because there were plenty of people about but we were pleasantly surprised. It is somewhat artificial in that the Dorset Wildlife Trust keep the bird feeders well stocked and therefore the Red Squirrels capitalise on this but it does mean that visitors get an incredibly close view of the creatures. You can sit on a bench just feet from them and it's only sudden movements that cause them to bolt.

The bird life is equally rewarding with Blue Tits, Great Tits, Chaffinches and Nuthatches paying frequent visits to the feeders. A short walk down the board-walk into the reed bed hide revealed four Grey Herons and a couple of Little Egrets, but no Water Rail or Water Vole this time. This is all irrespective of the main lagoon where there was a veritable feast of Gulls, Common Redshanks, Common Sandpipers, Oystercatchers, Spoonbills, Cormorants, Avocet and Sanderlings.

To cap it all a young Sika deer wandered around the area just near the Red Squirrels, and was quite nonchalant in its behaviour.

And to finish things off a Common Lizard and its young were sunning themselves by the path leading back from the villa, a very satisfying visit.

Corn robber

The peanuts and badger box went out around 20:30 and the badgers were on post by 21:00, the evenings getting darker earlier is prompted them to get out of the sett much sooner these days. The box had meagre pickings, some baked beans, a few pieces of pasta and the remains of a corn on the cob. The cob was initially ignored in favour of the pasta and peanuts but once they'd gone one of the badgers made a play. Clutching one end of the cob in its mouth, head tipped back, it bolted for the Mexican Blossom and was not seen for ten minutes.

Whilst the cob was quietly consumed the others munched their way through the peanuts and gave us a chance to try and identify individuals. The facial markings seem too similar to really pick each one out but the tails do give a better idea. One, the largest, has a ring of white hair around the base of its tail and so 'Captain' is formally christened. The others need to distinguish themselves before they are named.

Now and then they all disappeared under the bush and squeals could be heard as they fought over the corn cob and then one made a dash for it, cob held high, and trotted back down the side of the playhouse. The other two finally appeared, looked around for their mate, had a long drink at the pond and then wandered off down the side of the house.

Salad days

It has been interesting to see what the badgers enjoy feasting upon and what they bluntly refuse. Last night the badger box was mostly filled with leftover salad bits, baked beans and ryvita. The baked beans were top of the list, closely followed by the ryvita which turned out to be a coveted treat, although there was some difficulty in carrying it. We've noticed than when one of them stumbles onto something particularly tasty, they scurry off under the Mexican Orange Blossom bush for some privacy. It's not just this though, it is the manner in which they carry the food. They clench it in their mouths and tip their heads back as if trying to balance a ball carefully on the end of their nose. It all looks a bit odd as their head almost looks graceful but the body plods on along behind, tail wagging.

So here is the list to date of likes and dislikes:

Likes
All meat products
Pasta
Noodles
Baked beans
Bread
Cherry tomatoes (although they've not quite worked out how to eat them)
Cucumber
All cereals
Biscuits

Dislikes
Bean sprouts
Onion
Lettuce

Last night the three of them turned up early, just after 21:00. Whilst one of them nosed through the badger box looking for treats the others hurriedly hoovered up the peanuts. This was a smash and grab, once they'd realised there was no meat available.

...and so it begins

This is the start of a record of the adventures of the Bearwood Badger family in our back garden.

After several months of the lawn being peppered with holes, most of which were beyond the ability of the visiting Green Woodpecker, my daughter and I began scattering peanuts outside the conservatory door. I'd caught fleeting glimpses of an animal sprinting across the grass in the darkness but it could just have well as been a cat. It became a regular thing to check the peanuts in the morning and they'd magically disappeared. But without being totally convinced the vigil began and within a week the peanut-eaters had been identified - the badgers were here!

Every night at 21:00 we scatter peanuts on the lawn and put any leftovers in the badger box and then most nights they'll saunter out from the side of the playhouse and begin their snuffling. Sometimes it's just one of them, most of the time it is three, but the record has been six badgers at once. That was the day it all went a little bit crazy, there were badgers everywhere and it's possible they'd even freaked themselves out. One went careening across the grass, jumped the tall grasses around the pond and landed in the middle of the water. Two stumbled around behind the gooseberries whilst the others fought over the peanuts on the conservatory steps. Since then we've not seen more than three badgers in the garden at any one time.

Although they occasionally react to one of us moving in the conservatory there is rarely any real fuss about us. In fact they are generally oblivious to our presence to the point that one of them bumped his head on the glass of the conservatory door as my wife had her nose pressed up against the glass.

Last night we had a wonderful opportunity to observe their behaviour as three of them tucked into a badger box filled with pasta and noodles. They took it in turns at the box, the largest badger going first whilst the other two snuffled around munching peanuts. Once the first feeder had finished he decided it was time for a rest and proceeded to lay flat on the grass like a dog. Each of them did this, as if the pasta had weighed heavily on them and they needed time to process the food. At one point two of them engaged in mutual grooming, before the largest of the badgers rolled onto his back and proceeded to have a hard core scratch, legs splayed in all manner of directions. Whilst this was going on one of the others was obviously not satisfied with the sustenance of the pasta and went in search of worms. He or she (the identification guides don't really make it easy to tell the difference between the them) began a massive excavation, beyond anything they'd done to date and I hope it was worth it because once more the lawn looks like a battlefield.

Shattered expectations

I think that there was palpable disappointment from the badgers last night when they inspected their box and only found a couple of mini sausages and some leftover salad. Slim pickings compared to the feasts they'd been served the past few days. They used to be satisfied with peanuts but now their expectations are obviously higher. The three of them sidled into the garden earlier than usual (although it is getting dark just that bit earlier now), around 21:15, hoovered up the peanuts and were gone within ten minutes. This time they made their way out through the hole in the fence and across the field towards the golf course and heath. At least this time they did not linger to create more craters on the lawn.