Topic: Badgered By Badgers

[gazza1960]

For 2 former townies to move to the sticks in Dorset it was a privilege the other night for Jude to come squeeking into the lounge...
.....Gaz....come quick  !!!!!

I was lead into the darkened bedroom.....I thought..AYE up mate.....but no it was better than sex as she manoeuvred me toward the window and in the faint light from our other back room I could see the shape of a Badger scoffing the peanuts that had fallen from the bird feeders onto the concrete slabs.

We had moved to the countryside and now the countryside was coming to see us,albeit stuffing his snout.

We stood motionless at the glass fearing to move incase we frightened it off.

After about 10 mins he,d hoovered up the free offereings and made his way back through the hole in our back fence to the coppice
behind us.

Talk about 2 children giggling at the event in our own garden,,,,couldn't believe our luck as we had only just been talking about
going to the Badgers set you can visit at night in Dorchester and pay for the privilege and within a few days we have our own
display........for FREE.

Last night he came calling again and we lead my mum through the house so she could see her very 1st live Badger...well chuffed.

Tonight we had just started watching it feed about 8pm when another one appears out of the darkness so weve now 2 Badgers
feeding in the garden.....well id like to say I had some fantastic pictures but from 30 feet away ive yet to suss our NEW camera
so all you've got is this............



not great ill grant you but about the best I could get as I didn't want to use the flash and scare them away.
and a slow shutter speed just produced a black and white moving blur .....so ho hum.

anyway ...not all good as I heard a cat call in our garden and Jude panicked that our neighbours cat might confront them and come off the worse so .....a quick bang on the window saw everything scatter ....shame but we like the catz too and didn't wish to see anything inflicted on them .

We now have a delemour as Judes brother spoke to her the other day and said that once our root crops are thriving later in the season
the badgers are prone to snaffling whatever they can munch on...I though it would be them looking for worms that they might dig up
our small veggie patch.....so we are now considering ending our visitors banquets but filling in the entrance hole.

Still the last few days have been fantastic for us Townies moving here to Dorset and having nature come a calling.

Brilliant fun  !!!!!!!!

Oh and if anybody of a camera skills background can advise me on how best to capture a moving animal in virtual darkness
spill the beans as im all ears  !!!!!!!!!!!

Cheers

GazNjude

 

[Paulines7]

You could fix a flood light to the house so it lights up the back garden; the badgers would get used to it. 

You could also install CCTV cameras for about £200 then see exactly what visitors you are having in your garden.  We don't have badgers but see hares, deer and hedgehogs every now and again.  We have PIR lighting and animals coming into our garden set off the lights and they are then caught clearly on camera.  One would think they would run away when the lights come on but they have grown use to them.  The deer usually appear in a group of 4 or 5 and nibble away at my shrubs and roses, disregarding the bright lights.   

[Mikeakabigman]

There you go , I notice from the metadata attached to your image that your camera was set to ISO 100 this is no good for very low light situations, try changing it to ISO 1000  It should help.

[Digeroo]

Great to see the badgers. However they have voracious appetites.  Not sure how many veg you will get to eat.  They particularly like sweet corn.  It is not very easy to badger proof a veg plot.

Many thanks Mike  I have had a play with Window live photo gallery and done it as well. 

[small]

It's a great thrill, isn't it, seeing such a huge creature wuffling around. Not so thrilling when they dig up your garden - last year I lost carrots, potatoes, JA's and an entire row of sunflowers to one! We protected what was left with a single strand of electric fencing, that did the trick, though one of my cats had to learn the hard way too...

[gazza1960]

Yes Pauline Jude recalls you mentioning your light system to check on visitors up your driveway,it seems you already have a lovely variety of visitors to your home.

Yes,the Badger set we visited in Dorchester had Red lighting as apparently it makes them feel more at ease ,so who knows quite what we,ll do next,

I think Jude having read about them tearing up lawns for worms is not quite so enthusiastic
But I always wanted our small lawned garden as more growing area so maybe the Badgers
Might help me....haha.

Of course Mike thank you for the reminder I'd got so lazy with a digital cam on Auto that I'd
Forgotten the basics of my 35mm cam film days.

Cam adjusted,so we,ll see what piccies come from your helpful advice.

Showed Jude the upgraded picture and she liked it.

Yes read this morning about them liking soft fruits etc....so we have got to make our minds up
If we want an animal kingdom in our small corner of Dorset or enjoy growing veggies
Badger FREE.

[goodlife]

How lovely to see badgers
And yes, you need to sort that 'entrance' if you want to have any veggies for yourself...BUT...you'll be surprised how good climbers they are if they really want to get in to your garden... fence won't stop them. They will climb over 'normal' fence and should it be too high for them.. if there is any weaker points...the bleeders will come through it!

Last year, one morning in work..OH saw badger 5 ft up in a tree and still going on..! Friend of us, 'chicken man'...badges decided go in to coop and have a 'snack'..I'm not entirely sure if they were after eggs, chicks or chickens but the did rip big hole on the back wall, made entry and caused such a havoc..I'm sure some chickens died for heart attack with scare rather than being actually savaged.

But that's nature...they have to eat and live too...

[Paulines7]

Yes read this morning about them liking soft fruits etc....so we have got to make our minds up
If we want an animal kingdom in our small corner of Dorset or enjoy growing veggies
Badger FREE.

A difficult decision.   

There is no way we could keep the deer from our garden but my vegetable plots also act as chicken runs in a rotation system. They are all fenced off to keep deer and foxes out.  It also deters pheasants and partridges.   Our soft fruit area has a frame around it (made from old gazebo frames) and we attach netting when the fruit is forming. 

Other than fencing off your growing area, you will have problems.

[gray1720]

Luckily we are badger-free, unlike some local plots (at least one group are not helped by a bunny hugger who rips down people's security measures). Foxes, OTOH... but I can't complain too much about them as I'm supposed to be OIC rabbit control, and the foxes keep the rabbits away!

If you want to see them, put a red light up - an awful lot of wildlife can't see red light, so will completely ignore it. Just make sure the neighbours don't think you're running a house of ill-repute, especially come the mating season when the noise will be pretty startling!

[Silverleaf]

If you don't want to disturb your neighbours with red lights and such you could get an infrared video camera - you can't see the light from them at all and neither can badgers. They aren't too expensive and you can hook them up to a computer or TV  (some are even wireless) and watch in comfort. I used to watch wild hedgehogs with mine, and it's lovely to see animals pottering around doing their thing.

I've only ever seen a live badger once - a noise disturbed me at about 2am one summer night, a strange noise I couldn't identify. I looked out of the window and saw a fat-looking short-legged shape moving across the road in front of the house, about the size of a medium dog. I wondered if it was actually a dog, but it moved all wrong, sort of bouncy but heavy. Not a dog, not a cat, not a fox.

I woke my boyfriend as quietly as I could so he could see too, but the animal heard me. By this time it was at the end of our little front lawn and it stopped and looked up at me leaning out of the bedroom window. It was only then I saw the striped face and recognised it as a young badger. It was definitely young because it was pretty small and had a fairly blunt face rather than a pointed adult face.

It also didn't seem overly concerned about us staring at it, as it turned and nonchalantly ambled off into our neighbour's garden. It was amazing to see it, and it still surprises me how difficult that striped face is to see in the dark. You'd think the white would stand out a mile, but I didn't see it until it was at the exact right angle.

[bazzysbarn]

we had one last year that came into our garden it was great fun at first watching him/her with the children,but after a while my garden was getting holes appearing and being used as a toilet!! in the end we blocked the hole in the hedge up but its still around as the cemetery now has he /she.