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
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