Peggy, our Yew View badger has spent most of her days in the sett this week. She is appearing regularly at the feeding station and must be foraging efficiently as she does not look thin, despite her apparent leg injury.
When I built this sett, I was informed by a badger 'expert' at a talk I was giving to the Mammal Trust, that the badgers would not use this space; it was too big and the design was 'wrong'. I accepted his comments graciously and said I was happy to wait and see and I was sure something would move in and take advantage of a warm and safe space.
Here are a couple of pictures of it under construction!
I hope he looks in on my footage and smiles at this individual apparently relishing in the spacious accommodation on offer! She certainly seems to like being able to spread out and often sleeps completely upside-down with legs akimbo, scratching and stretching. She certainly looks VERY comfortable in there.
Of course, a natural badger sett would be unlikely to have chambers as big unless they were natural cavities under tree roots or similar.
Enjoy the clips this week.... I know I certainly do and I love to see her so comfortable! I added some straw this week as she was not in the sett on Thursday. As I lifted out the camera to clean it, I was amazed at the warmth rising from the chamber. It was a cold and frosty morning, so the outside temperature was below freezing. It was considerably warmer in there. I have seen steam rising from natural badger setts in the winter, so that does not surprise me really. I may look into finding a thermometer to pop in here that would log the temperature. It would be very interesting to see!
So... here is Peggy... doing what badgers do.... Enjoy!