Definitely two badgers from photographic evidence. 4 July 2025

Timings of photographs and videos from last week indicate at least two badgers are still passing through and or using this area. Firstly, a word about the trail cams I am using.

GardePro - a no glow trail cam, which is proving very good both in speed and imagery. I had one a few years ago which expired rather quickly. I was rather nervous about getting another one. Early days yet, but it is still working. It's one really annoying feature: it's slider switch positions are different to all other trail cams.

The standard slider switch positions are Off-Set-Record.  GardePro's slider switch positions are Off-Record-Set. The number of times I have the GardePro to Set will make me a millionaire. 

Bargarbou. Recently bought. It is a 'low glow' camera. Animals can be spooked by the glow at night. Humans can see the glow, and the nefarious ones attempt to steal it. Otherwise, very cheap. Imagery and photography not bad. It's AVI videos can have difficulty playing back on Windows 11 ever since Microsoft released their mega update.

UsoGood. Again, recently bought. Very cheap. Problematic. Firstly, it is low glow, same as Bargarbou. Secondly, it's software will not turn on infrared lights in low light conditions or when another nearby trail cam switches its on. This results in grainy, dark images or none at all if a nearby trail cam switches its IR off. I have to deploy these trail cams away from others. Thirdly, can't really playback videos on Windows 11 as it's AVI codec is not recognised ever since Microsofts' mega update. YouTube, Openshot, etc do not recognise it either. Only VLC media player recognises it. So I use VLC to convert UsoGood's videos from AVI to mpeg. A complete pain. Otherwise, decent enough imagery.

We kick off with the arrival of badger one, crawling under a fence by the outlier sett. These sett has the UsoGood trail cam on it. Note the time.

The UsoGood has decided there is sufficient light for it to photograph and video without using IR.

15 minutes later, badger two arrives, performing some interesting gymnastics.

It kept inching lower...

And lower...

Before losing interest in the sett entrance.

The badgers then tend to hang around just to the right of the trail cam. Frustratingly, I haven't managed to place a trail cam pointing in that direction to see what they are doing. But from various sounds, they appear to be grooming.

Jumping around a bit. The badgers tend to arrive at this outlier sett when light starts fading (roughly 21:50 currently) and then head home just when light starts building up, roughly 4:00 am. Thus, I was very surprised to see this...

This is a slightly more normal return to home time, but still a bit late.

Conversely, one of the earliest times I've seen the badgers currently. Plus a bit of indecision.

It takes a trail cam up to three seconds from triggering to videoing. The badger was out and over to the right of the camera before it started videoing. However the badger hung around, grooming.

Then decides to go back under the fence.

Is this the same badger returning a few minutes later?

Has a good scratch.

Before disappearing back under the fence.