Vanishing badgers?

[scott75]

Hi,

In November I moved into a new house and between 7:30 and 9:00pm every night badgers would visit the bottom of my garden. It is surrounded by trees and brambles and I can see clear paths that run by the garden. On the other side of the bottom of the garden is a slope that runs into brambles and there is a hole that I think is an entrance to a sett. I am uncertain if it is used, but it is next to the entrance and exit the badgers use to come in and out of the garden. Sometimes we have a pair, other times they come one at a time. I believe there might be three but can't be certain.

I have occasionally left out some peanuts for them and they did not seem bothered by the outside light. On one occasion I had a couple of friends over and when I opened the back door, a pair of badgers were quite happy in our garden and not bothered by us watching them.

Since the 'freeze' however, the badgers have not appeared. I have spent quite a few nights from dusk until 1:00am and I have only seen a fox in this time.

My question is (finally!).... Have the badgers moved away? Have they stopped visiting due to the cold weather? I understand they get more active in February due to mating. Should I expect a return?

Any help would be great. Thanks.
Scott.

[mammalrecorder]

Hi Scott

Welcome to the group. Your badgers are probably spending some 'quite time' while the weather is cold and the ground hard. They find foraging hard at this time of year and although they do not hiberbate they become much less active especially when the ground is like iron!
If you are not sure whether the holes are a sett or not then contact your local badger group. You can find a contact at The Badger Trust: Affiliated Groups if you are in England or Wales or scottishbadgers.org.uk in Scotland. Your local group may already know about the sett but if not they will be gald to and will be able to tell you a great deal more about badgers that I can in this message. If you are able to keep an eye on the badgers you will also be helping Operation Meles which is a targeted wildlife crime initiative against badger baiting and related crimes.

Enjoy your badgers.

[GavinWheeler]

About this time of year, if the sett is being used by badgers (the fox might have moved into an abandoned sett) you should see earth and litter around the entrance, where the badgers have been doing their spring cleaning.

Otherwise you can just put a few small twigs across the hole, and if something is using the hole they will be thrown out of the way the next day.

Also a badger group will have a main sett, and other smaller satellite setts used by adolescents wanting to get away from the parents, sows having cubs or just as an emergency shelter if they are caught too far away from the main sett. So it might be such a satellite sett that is currently unused.