BadgerCam at a new sett

This is an old sett that has been reoccupied fairly recently.  Badger clans have a number of setts in their territory and various family members move between them.  This one, I think, is an outlier sett, about 100m from the main sett and it now has two active entrances although there are another half dozen that are disused.  It is one of six setts that I know of in the territory.  Having seen recent signs of activity I set up a couple of cameras to see what was going on.

Badgers are always wary when they emerge from the sett for the first time in the evening, sniffing the air and listening before deciding it is safe to come out.  This is on the no-glow (940nm) camera and the picture is not too bad after contrast enhancement.

The trail camera picked up an interaction between two badgers.  The first in view is churring (I think), aware of a second badger off to the left.  It turns and goes back around the tree as the second smaller badger comes into view. The first comes right around the tree and there is some sort of confrontation just out of view with chittering and a growl. The smaller badger stayed in that position for some minutes with just its tail in view and the larger one didn't reappear.

Badgers make a lot of different noises.  Marc Baldwin quotes researchers from Oxford who identified 16 different sounds - bark, chirp, chitter, churr, cluck, coo, growl, grunt, hiss, kecker, purr, snarl, snort, squeak, wail and yelp.  You can listen to examples of all the badger sounds via Marc's website.

Here is another video from a different camera a few metres away.  One badger is foraging and I think the sound in the background is probably a fox rather than a badger - there was a fox in the frame a couple of clips earlier.  This is the 2020 low-glow camera on a misty night with just a standard lens.

The background sounds are easy to identify on the next video, female and male tawny owls.  This is my newest low-glow (850nm) camera, although a 2019 rather than a 2020 model - I think the older one is better.  Fitted with a +0.5 dioptre lens the image quality is good.

I don't know how many badgers are in this sett.  Watching the video clips I lose track of them as they come and go out of view (and there is another entrance).  I suspect there are three or four and the small one may be this year's cub (there may be more than one small one of course).  I think I recognise one - I think the badger in the next video is the mother of two cubs who featured on many recordings from the main sett in the spring.  She has very distinct colouring with a pale left flank and haunch.  This is now.

And this was in spring.

Here is the video.

My next plan is to set up cameras on some of the other setts to see what is going on there.  If I find anything interesting you will be the first to know.