Arising phoenix like from the ashes of the late RSPB community forums comes Badger Watch.

​A little history. My other half and I take a three mile walk most every morning along country paths around where we live: somewhere near Wokingham. We've often seen interesting holes in one bank along a small section of path. I even put a trail cam out a few years ago and saw badgers walking through the area. The trail cam also revealed plenty of rabbits.

I had always assumed the holes in the bank were caused by rabbits, as they appeared too small to be badger setts. Until, one day, I realised there were signs of bedding (straw) being dragged into a sett hole.

Out went a trail cam, which almost immediately picked up photos and videos of a badger. A few weeks passed and it soon became evident there were more than one badgers present. Finally, my trail cam filmed to badgers (christened Scratch (male) and Scrawny Tail (female) mating. This went on for a week and a half, and then stopped.

Since then, there have been no further signs of mating, but plenty of grooming, anal rubbing, play fighting, rough and tumble, and other activities pertaining to a couple bonding. Of late, there has been even more signs of the female gathering bedding (straw), as much as two or three times a week, but mostly once. 

More posts will follow as I start using this blog, and finish my long running landscaping of our garden.

Before we launch into cute videos, some words of observation. Firstly, I am very impressed with the care and attention lavished on the cubs by the sow. She is very attentive. I can't say if this is instinct or learned, and neither can I tell if this is her first litter. Regardless, she is forever cleaning the cubs and aware of where they are.

Secondly, one of the cubs is very adventurous. It is already wandering off on its own. I'm not sure how long it will live if it keeps this up. While the local roads at either end of the footpath aren't actually the busiest, what cars use them usually travel quite fast, speeding along narrow, unlit country lanes.

Badger cubs seem to have this game called bite each others' tails. This game can get a bit comical.

A bit later on, more tail biting

Then your basic play

If you can't get a tail then an ear will do.  I've seen adults do this ear biting as well.

Still friends.

I wonder if the cubs get tired of endless bathing? This one has a tussle.

Sometimes the sow gets a little too enthusiastic with her cleaning.

Though she is obsessed with cleaning.

Sow has a chilled scratch and clean.

Cubs have a fight.

First the bad news. My trail cam which points into the central entrance of Badger Manor ran out of charge on the morning of the 8th April. Returned to Badger Manor on the 11th April to do my weekly swapping of SD cards. We lost a lot of really cute footage of the badger cubs.

Luckily, however, the cubs switched to using the lower left entrance for two of the missing three days. So all is not as bad as could have been.

The cubs are growing at a tremendous speed, both physically and mentally. Just two weeks ago, the sow introduced the cubs to the outside world, and now she is taking them out onto the footpath to explore the big bad world.

Firstly, we'll start with what all children get up to - play.

Both cubs have been exploring the sett area, but one makes it to the edge of the area with the potential for danger. Mum, however, puts a stop to it.

Mum brings the cub back.

She then takes both cubs out onto the footpath.

Before bringing them back. But they don't see the hole that was dug some months ago.

This was the last video shot by the front facing trail cam before it ran out of charge.

When I first saw this video I was perplexed as to where the cub had come from. I surmised that mum had taken it out of another sett entrance before leading it around the back of the sett to get to this entrance.

At first I thought it might have been via the upper left entrance, as I saw the sow go down it. I can't give you the answer as I reached my daily upload limit with YouTube.

I may have to put another trail cam out in the hated upper left sett hole. I feel that all badgers are either using it or the path a lot. Here we see the sow exiting the lower left entrance, climb up the bank, before disappearing down the upper left entrance.

Yes folks, there are two badger cubs at Badger Manor. The sow is introducing her cubs to the big bad world. She may even dragged one reluctant cub out. They don't spend a huge amount of time outside of the sett, probably five to 20 minutes, before being pushed back in. One cub did find the outside too scary, and made its way back into the sett.

Both cubs are very young, and very unsteady on their legs. I was quite surprised to see them out so early. I believe they usually make their first outings in May.

​Enjoy the videos. I may add more over the coming days.

Our badger cub has grown considerably since we last saw it being swung around unceremoniously by its mother on the 23rd February. This time, the cub was led out by its mother. I'm not sure what the sow was doing. Possibly introducing her cub to the big bad world.

Possibly taking her cub to another sett. The badgers did abandon this sett last May, only to come back in September or October. So I don't know if Badger Manor is a main sett complex. Out badgers simply coming here for the winter.

The cub would not have managed to travel far, if the sow was intending to take it to another sett complex. I think, nay hoping, the cub was ushered back into the sett by the sow. You see, my trail cams sleep for 30 seconds after taking a video. The cub would not have gone far in 30 seconds, so the trail cam would have triggered again. It didn't.

We've experienced the usual mixed bag of weather that March can throw at us. Mild early on last week, with a day or so of torrential rain, followed by sunnier, dry but colder weather i.e. frosty mornings. Badgers do not really like the cold. They prefer to hunker down and enter a state of torpor. Which is what our badgers seemed to do.

But first, a first for me: Firecrests. I've been hearing a rather high pitched call, which I thought initially were Goldcrests, though remained doubtful. The call was louder, with more defined tones than our Goldcrests. I whipped out Merlin. It told me I was hearing Firecrests.

Well, what a surprise. Further, not only did Merlin pick up Firescrest at various locations around our walk, it also picked them up in a nature reserve  some 300 yards from us, but which we rarely, if ever visit.

Of course, one needs to be slightly suspicious of Merlin. It's not 100% accurate.

All this changed this morning when, shortly after swapping the SD cards and about 20 yards from Badger Manor, I heard the alleged Firecrests - only we spotted the things, this time. Howls of frustration may have heard all over Berkshire - I was too lazy and didn't take my medium lens and R7.  All I had was my compact digital camera.

This is, I can't aim the thing. Especially at high magnification. I point it in what I hoped was the right direction, in the approximate area of where I saw a little bird flitting about. Much to my surprise, I got this.  Notice the gloom and mass of twigs around the bird.

You'll notice the bird is fluffed up. That's because it was frosty this morning.

Just to proved to me that Merlin was correct, the thing burst into song again.

Back to our badgers. One odd feature this past week is that the badgers have been using the lower right sett entrance a lot. They've hardly used the main sett entrance, and most definitely have not used the right roof entrance.

The question is: are they now using a chamber to the left of the main entrance, having moved over from the chamber on the right?

Here's a badger, I think sow, taking a look out of the lower left sett hole.

Here are a couple of a badger exiting the lower left sett hole.

Now going into the sett hole.

There is a possibility of a new sett hole being dug to the top right of the right roof hole. It's actually quite difficult to spot, being high up, under a fence on the field adjoining the badger setts. I think it will be a little tricky to get a trail cam onto. I need to take a look first.

We roll on towards May, and hopefully signs of a cub or two.

I discovered two badger setts on Saturday. One some miles away (discovered whilst on a nine mile hike), and one a short walk from my home. Yes, it's even closer than Badger Manor. 

As usual, I cannot identify where, precisely, the badger setts are.

I may visit the close badger sett in the early hours of the morning as I also know where three Barn owl boxes are.

I took a 3D area scan of the close badger sett on Saturday. First time I've ever tried an area scan to give a better idea of the extent of a badger sett. I did a fair job, not least as it was at the end of the walk and I was quite tired - especially as I humped my Canon R7 and 70-300mm S lens with me.  However, I felt it wasn't quite right: I missed a small-ish badger sett hole next to a tree.

I went back this morning, and even though it was overcast, and did a better job of it.  Judge for yourselves.

Now some 3D scans of a couple of the sett entrances.

About 400-500m from this sett complex was a boundary latrine. Unlike the broad one we found on the badger sett survey last month, this boundary latrine was spread in a long line along two perpendicular parts of a footpath - i.e. the footpath turned through 90 degrees, and is sandwiched between fences. Thus forming a perfect boundary.

I took a 3D scan of a patch of Celandines. It came out rather well, even though I had to do the scan in a hurry - hiking, remember.

Least we forget in the excitement of finding new badger setts - Badger Manor.

No cub sightings this week. I don't really expect to see a cub before the end of April or mid-May. However, the badgers themselves were very active - even in the pouring rain. The lower left and main sett entrances were used. The roof entrance only once.

However, I am convinced, more than ever that there are at least two sows occupying the sett. One sow has given birth and occupies a chamber to the right of the main entrance. Another sow occupies a chamber to the left of the main sett - I think. This latter sow has not given birth, though this is a hell of an assumption on my part.  The boar or boars come and go.

I'll post some videos and photos later on in the week.

After the excitement of last week, with badger cub and Sparrowhawk, quiet normality has returned to Badger Manor.

I still do not know how many badgers are using this sett. I get the impression that a couple of new sett holes are being dug to the left of the main sett hole, but I do not know if this is being done by the existing badgers or a new one.

I paid my last visit to our urban badger sett. Much as I had expected, the badgers had abandoned the sett. I felt this was an outlier or satellite sett, which one or two sows had used over winter. They have now returned to the main sett - which I will attempt to find one day.

I'm not sure if any badger gave birth in this sett or if one did, whether the cub or cubs died. We'll never know. A couple of foxes visited the sett, but none came out with a cub.  The owner then told me that this sett was originally a fox den, which a couple of badgers took over and enlarged. So, in reality, the foxes were reclaiming what was theirs.

​I suspect the owner will see fox cubs this year.

Yes folks, your eyes do not deceive you. A badger cub made an appearance out of the main sett entrance at Badger Manor. Cubs aren't normally seen until about late April of early May. For some reason, and we mustn't anthromoporphise her behaviour, our sow decided to give her cub an airing.

Here is our cub as viewed from the front of the sett.

And here it is as viewed from the rear of the sett.

In this image, we see that the cub is already forming stripes on its head. This points to the cub being born quite early in the year - perhaps sometime in January. Apart from one cold snap, the weather has been very mild this winter.

I thought for one moment that the sow was transferring her cub or cubs to another sett. They do this sometimes. But no! She returned her cub to the chamber on the right.

The appearance of the cub over shadowed this visitor. A Sparrowhawk to the right of the main sett entrance, next to the roof hole. I have no idea how this Sparrowhawk managed to get here, as this area is under cover of trees, and the only way in is narrow with lots of branches to impede the hawk's way. I also do not know if it has a kill. I did not see any feathers when I swapped SD cards around.

Strangely enough, I did return on Monday morning (23rd) to set the time correctly on my GardePro trail cam. It was 12 hours out. I also too the opportunity to rotate the trail cam which took the Sparrowhawk footage up a bit. I felt it was pointing too low. The Sparrowhawk would not have been in this footage had I rotated the trail cam earlier!

Keeping with the area right of the main sett entrance. We have a badger, possibly a boar, having an investigate of the roof in the hole. I have this suspicion that there might be a interloping badger investigating Badger Manor.

Soon after investigating the roof hole, a badger squeezes itself into it, which is why I think it is a boar.

And another entry. It is possible that the hole is now a little bigger, or this badger has worked out how to get into this hole, but in either case, it simply slides in.

I think this is a sow.

To set the scene. I've suspected for a while that there may be one or two other badgers sniffing around Badger Manor. I'm not entirely convinced as I haven't made the effort to study our badgers to try and tell them apart.

As I was reviewing photos of last week's happenings, I noticed that something had hurtled out of the badger sett, coming from the direction of the entrances to the left of the main entrance. Note, this happened well after out sow swung her cub around.

Here is a photo, the only one of three, to get a shape hurtling out of the sett area. I cannot tell for sure whether this creature is a fox (because of the long tail) or badger - a fast moving creature will cause certain body parts to appear longer than they are due to their fast movement in the time to take a photo i.e. the exposure time.

Five to six seconds later, another badger hurtles out of the main sett area, possibly in hot pursuit.

About a minute later, our badger returns, though clearly agitated.

However, the badger remains agitated. Here it rushes into the main sett area, but then rushes out as if to take on an interloper who had called it a rude name.

This went on for a bit, but the badger seems to have calmed down, and all appears normal at Badger Manor.

Roll on the excitement for next week. Weather wise, it should be drier and warmer. Last week was foul on occasions, very strong winds at one point, and heavy rain to add to our misery. There was heavy squalls early this morning, but only the lightest of rain since 4:00am.