More from Badger Bridge

A few more pictures from the broken bridge.  Once again the badger didn't turn up until after 4am, by which time the (rechargeable) batteries in my auxiliary infrared LEDs were completely flat.  I had two cameras, as before, one a low-glow and one a no-glow infrared.  The no-glow camera really does benefit from the extra light from the low-glow.  Each camera will only record for 20s at night, with a short break of 0.5-2.5s before it switches on again.  And they aren't synchronised, so they don't trigger or switch on and off together.

In this first video clip, from the no-glow camera, I have edited out the bits where the other camera wasn't on so we have good resolution and high contrast to give a fairly good image with little processing.  The badger arrived from the left and stayed in the downsloping position for several minutes while it hoovered up most of the peanuts.  It went onto the bridge but soon turned round when it realised all the peanuts were at one end.  You can see the extra shadow from the light from the other camera which is off to the right.  Unlike otters and foxes, badgers seem to take no notice of the infrared light.

The next clip shows how this camera performs using its own light (wavelength 940nm) with and then without additional (850nm) light from the low-glow.  This clip is unadjusted but it is possible to increase the contrast with iMovie.

The third video is from the low-glow camera.  This one shows almost no effect from the no-glow switching on and off. Its raw image is a bit "flat", ie lacking in contrast, but it adjusts well in iMovie and I think has generally better resolution, also apparent on the frame grabs.

It also records better sound, although it was slightly closer to the stream.  The badger here is sniffing out the last few peanuts.  Remember it is doing this in total darkness, so the precision of its nose is astonishing.  I read that a badger's sense of smell is nearly 1000 times more sensitive than ours.

*My BT broadband connection has now been upgraded to "Superfast" (at no extra cost!).  My download speed is now a dizzy 5.4 Mbps and the upload has trebled to 1.2 Mbps so it now takes only 20 minutes to upload a 60s video whereas previously it took an hour.  These three clips took less than an hour instead of two and a half hours.  Progress.