When push comes to shove

Although badgers are very social animals and live in big family groups, they are usually solitary foragers, preferring to eat alone.  I have occasionally been leaving a few peanuts outside the sett, partly as a thank you for all the video I am getting and also with the idea of encouraging them to linger outside the sett within view of the camera.  (I don't post it here but I am getting hours of footage of solitary badgers sitting scratching.)

The badgers' social life demands a certain amount of tolerance and cooperation  but that is tested when there is competition for food.  This in an interesting sequence, the first time I have seen eight badgers in one clip, although not all in view at one time.

It starts with a single large badger, presumably a boar.  He is joined by no. 2, a smaller, leaner, cleaner-looking animal. The next arrival, no. 3, is the mother of the cubs who is easily recognised from her very distinctive colouring.  Badger no. 4 wanders past and doesn't join the party.  The first conflict arises between nos. 1 and 2 with brief shoving and snarling.  No. 2 retreats and no. 5 rushes in, possibly to break up the fight?  No. 3 snaps at no. 5 and a cub (no. 6) arrives and is greeted by mother.  No 1 moves out of the way as the second cub (badger no. 7) comes in.  Mother leads the cubs away from the trouble and you can hear her churring as she calls them to follow her.  No 1 wanders off as no. 8 arrives.  There is then more shoving between nos. 2 and 5.  One of them (I have lost track by now) leaves so the last badger sits down for a scratch, which is usually all I see.

It is difficult to know what the relationship and status of all these badgers is.  I can only recognise a few individuals (mother and cubs are easiest) but the clan probably has only one breeding female, and I have only seen these two cubs.  There will probably be one dominant boar (the cubs' father) and several subadult females and boars, who tend to hang around together and compete with each other.

Another confrontation recorded on the camera was more straightforward.  A largish badger was happily munching its way along the path (where there happened to be a few peanuts) when a larger badger came along the other way. Neither wanted to give way so a conflict was inevitable.  This one was limited to a wrestling match and, as you can predict, the larger animal won.  This type of behaviour, shielding the food and shoving your rival out of the way, is also seen in the fox cubs and is known as body blocking.  It goes to show that size does matter.

Playfighting

Getting decent video of the fox cubs on the trail cameras is a real challenge.  The den has many interconnected entrances and the adults rarely come near an entrance with a camera, perhaps because they know the camera is there.  There is often only one cub and if a second one appears they dash off out of view.  I'll keep experimenting but in the meantime here are a couple of videos.  The first is recorded on a no-glow camera.

The second is on a low-glow camera with noticeably better resolution.

The cubs seem to get on well with each other and sit happily side by side.  The play fights help develop their muscles and reflexes and hone their hunting skills.

Red mason bees in close up

In previous years this little observation wing was attached to the side of my bee house but in the new position it doesn't fit so I have fixed it to the garage wall.

I was pleased when one bee started building in it and even more pleased when there were three, although it hasn't all gone according to plan.

The bees collect mud to fashion walls between the cells, making multiple trips back and forth.  The first bee was building one hole up from the bottom and made rapid progress, managing three cells on a warm sunny day.  She first measures out the cell and part-completes the wall.

Then she stocks the cell with a mixture of pollen and nectar.  The pollen is carried on a furry brush (scopa) under her abdomen and is delivered tail first by scraping the pollen off with her hind legs.  Once there is a bit of pollen she makes alternating layers of pollen and nectar, first regurgitating nectar from her crop and then turning round and delivering another load of pollen.  The bee can't quite turn in an 8mm round hole so has to return to the entrance but she can just manage in an 8mm square hole which saves a few moments.

Here is the bee bringing nectar and pollen on video.

Once the pollen and nectar is sufficient the bee lays an egg and seals the cell before starting the next one.  Here is a half completed wall.

And here she is finishing a cell wall.

A second bee started work one hole down from the top but was noticeably less agile and slower.  I think it had a problem with its right middle leg - possibly the leg was missing - and it made slower progress.  You can see the egg in the middle cell.  The darker goo is where the nectar has soaked into the pollen.

They were joined by a third bee which didn't seem to have much idea.  She kept checking all the holes, including the two in use which led to a few confrontations.  Eventually she started work in a middle hole but also started halfway along by building a complete wall first.  You can see there was even a false start in the hole above.

Then the weather turned very cold for a couple of days and top two bees disappeared.  The top one had completed three cells with one half finished and the middle bee hadn't even finished one.  The bottom bee also stopped work and sat around in one of the lower holes, not looking well.  When I checked a couple of days later she had disappeared as well but had sealed the hole before she left.  I suppose she realised she couldn't do more but wanted to protect the four and a half cells she had completed.  Looking at the photo I think there must be at least 15 mouthfuls of mud in the top layer so you can see what a lot of work is involved.

BadgerCubCam

One of the cubs is a real nuisance to the other.  My guess is that the troublemaker is male and perhaps the other, who tries to ignore him, is female.  Compared with the fox cubs the badgers are clumsy and ungainly but they are very amusing.  Most of the recent recordings have been in daylight.  Here is an example of what the naughty cub gets up to.

Another time they tried to help mum with the housework without much success.

One thing badgers like more than almost anything else is peanuts.  On one occasion I left a few outside the sett as a thank you for the videos I have recorded so far.  One of the cubs found them first and kept going back in to tell the others.  Eventually they came out to see what all the fuss was about.  The whole episode lasted almost half an hour but I have speeded it up so here it takes only one minute to watch.

Red mason bees

The first red mason bees were out early this year.  I saw males on 15th April which is more than two weeks earlier than usual, although these were on the apple blossom and the dead sycamores whereas I probably concentrated more on the bee house in previous years.

I saw the first female on 27th April, again in the sycamore rather than the bee house.

One female has been building a nest in the bee house.  Because the finished nests in previous years were attacked by woodpeckers, blue tits and magpies the bee house is now protected by a wire mesh about 3-4cm in front of the holes. The bees have no difficulty navigating the mesh although I remove it for taking photos.  Here are a couple of photos of the bee bringing in mud to build the cell walls.

Red mason bees collect pollen from a wide variety of flowers but it seems always to be yellow.  This one is on broccoli.

And here is the bee bringing in pollen to provision the cells.  It is carried on the scopa on the underside of her abdomen.

The hole has a diameter of 8mm which is too small for her to turn around so she goes in head first to deposit some nectar and then returns to the entrance to turn around before reversing in to offload the pollen.

Here is a short video.

The last job is to seal the entrance.  The mud plug was about 5mmm thick.

When this bee finished she checked out a few adjacent holes and started work again in the hole above.  However, only a couple of hours later she was again sealing the hole so I think there can have been only one or two cells completed in the top one.  The second mud plug was about 8mm thick - quite a lot of mud sorties.  You can see woodpecker damage from previous years on two holes in this photo.  The small holes are occupied by tiny black wasps.

And this is how it ends.

Cubs on FoxCam

This is about as cute as it gets.  This was the first image I saw when I downloaded the images from the trail cameras.

Another view of one cub, at twilight.  There is quite a lot of background noise on the audio on this camera.

At this stage I didn't know how many cubs there are.  This was the first sign of three.  Eventually there were four but I didn't catch them all together on this camera.

In the video clips I have seen the cubs don't spend much time together.  Often there is just one sitting outside the den but of course the other three could be together somewhere else.  It is interesting how much they resemble kittens rather than puppies.  I hope to have more videos soon.

Vandalism

One of my trail cameras has been vandalised.  When I saw the damage I guessed the culprit right away.

And here he is.

He hadn't realised that he would be caught on video.  Caught red handed, so to speak.  When you watch the video you'll be surprised that the camera survived and still works normally.  You can even see bits flying off at one point. However, it is no longer weatherproof and is going off for repair.

The next generation on FoxCam

Here is a real treat.  When the vixen comes to the entrance to the den the cubs appear from a different one and race across to meet her.  This is my first sight of them but I think they have been out for a few days, even though they are small and not yet weaned.  In the first video the mother lets them suckle for a few moments before leading them away.

Then another  similar episode before dawn.  She must be calling to them each time but the sound isn't picked up by the camera.

On the third occasion mother went underground and for a few moments they didn't know where she was.  Or perhaps it was just a game.

This time it was the dog fox.  He is very handsome but seems to be less of an attraction as only one cub joined him.

It is interesting to compare the fox cubs with the badger cubs, who rarely leave their mother's side.  The foxes are much more independent early on and are left behind while the parents are out hunting.  They seem to spend a lot of time sitting by the entrance to the earth, waiting for mum or dad to return.  I will have more fox cub videos to share soon.  It is turning out to be such a busy season I can hardly keep up.