Badger Badger Badger Badger (mushroom mushroom)

[Hot Flatus]

This little bugger (and sometimes 3 others and a fox) have been opening our food bin on a regular basis, so for the last few nights we have put the tastiest morsels in a bowl which gets licked clean.

Tonight's menu:

A fried egg
Broccoli stalks
Some cornflakes
Apple cores
Peanuts (a treat)

[Mrs Pingu]

Lucky git!

[Hot Flatus]

I've got a video of it, too when I sat on the doorstep, and a fox arrived and waited his turn....anyone know an easy video host?

[Mrs Pingu]

Cool

[Hot Flatus]

here it is:

[Mrs Pingu]

[Cudzoziemiec]

Fox knows who's boss!

[Hot Flatus]

I was sat outside next to them. Badger was young. A larger one was in the vicinity but seemed to be much more circumspect

[Sergeant Pluck]

Very nice to see.

[ian]

Our garden is getting similarly crowded. We have a fox that lives under the summer house. Likes to lounge on the lawn. Has a bit of a bad leg, but seems mostly happy. The cats mostly regard it with casual disdain. Other foxes pop by, I've seen three hanging out. This about 30 minutes ago.



The badgers come at night. They're more occasional visitors. I thought it was foxes at first (they tend to dig up the lawn after rain for the worms) – but when I peeked out to see what the noise was, the fox was sitting on the summer house porch and watching two badgers shuffle around. Too dark for a proper photo though.

[Hot Flatus]

That's a lovely photo.

We have a very long garden, and at the end we have a large chicken enclosure built by me to be impenetrable by foxes. Thick welded mesh, with an 80cm skirt to discourage digging under. In 10 years we have never lost one to a fox, despite il being open all day so that the chickens can fuck about in the bottom 30 metres of garden. I am literally stunned that this is the case given we are so close to vast areas of woods.

Mink, however, are a different story.

We get things digging up our root vegetables. I suspect badgers. Also caught deer in there eating the broccoli. Bastards.

[ian]

Not sure where the badgers come from, but there's lots of long gardens behind ours (where the levitating tent still floats) that are mostly unused as they are long and steep and belong to houses at the bottom of the valley. Presumably, there's a sett back there somewhere.

It's quite nice though, we don't even live anywhere rural, it's suburban Surrey commuter belt.

The fox takes a nap in the middle of the lawn most days, retreating under the summer house other times. The cats sort of my notice it, but mostly they give each other a wide berth.

[pcolbeck]

We have a very long garden, and at the end we have a large chicken enclosure built by me to be impenetrable by foxes. Thick welded mesh, with an 80cm skirt to discourage digging under. In 10 years we have never lost one to a fox, despite il being open all day so that the chickens can fuck about in the bottom 30 metres of garden. I am literally stunned that this is the case given we are so close to vast areas of woods.

We live in a tiny village and our house fronts onto fields. We kept chickens for ten years and the big chicken run I built just used chicken wire but l made sure it went down a foot or so into a trench all round then bent outwards at the bottom and back filled it. Like you we never had a single problem with foxes though on mornings after snow we would often see fox prints all around the run.
Its really not difficult to keep poultry safe from foxes as long as you think about it a bit, I'm always amazed when people moan about foxes taking their birds.

[ian]

They do occasionally notice each other though.



Though Enemy Cat (and the Magpie Nemeses) are less well tolerated.

[SteveC]

Beyond our garden is a lane with a bungalows on one side with the other being a paddock and rough fields.
These are two of our regular visitors (sorry about the quality, it was a cheap camera trap).
These are taken on our patio, less than 5 metres from the back door.
The brick constructions contains hedgehog food (keeps the local cats out). The hog is an occasional visitor, Brock comes through most nights.


IMAG0004 by Steve Cunio, on Flickr


IMAG0003 by Steve Cunio, on Flickr

[Wowbagger]

I had some entertainment last night. It was a very wet night (over 30mm rain between 10pm and 9am).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTTpl4jF0Zk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sHze6e5BZA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJXNLTX3zJg

I gain the impression that those two foxes were giving each other a wide berth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mE-fhka60M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11povaKhWDc

Although there are lots of badgers living in our area, they can't get into our garden because it's got 6' fences.

[Wowbagger]

Beyond our garden is a lane with a bungalows on one side with the other being a paddock and rough fields.
These are two of our regular visitors (sorry about the quality, it was a cheap camera trap).
These are taken on our patio, less than 5 metres from the back door.
The brick constructions contains hedgehog food (keeps the local cats out). The hog is an occasional visitor, Brock comes through most nights.


IMAG0004 by Steve Cunio, on Flickr


IMAG0003 by Steve Cunio, on Flickr

Blimey! Where do you live, Steve? That's a very cold night for mid-June...

[SteveC]

Blimey! Where do you live, Steve? That's a very cold night for mid-June...

Somerset

Checking on a random weather history website, I'd say the camera is lying, at least about the temperature. It wasn't a very expensive one to start with. I will check it later.

[Wowbagger]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpHRGbxmz-k

Another multi-species bonanza - even if two of the species are molluscs.

[JonBuoy]

Blimey! Where do you live, Steve? That's a very cold night for mid-June...

Somerset

Checking on a random weather history website, I'd say the camera is lying, at least about the temperature. It wasn't a very expensive one to start with. I will check it later.

Not sure whereabouts in Somerset you are but RNAS Yeovilton recorded 1 degC at 3:50am on 14/5/20

[Hot Flatus]

About as close as I want to get

[andrew_s]

Blimey! Where do you live, Steve? That's a very cold night for mid-June...

14/05/20 is mid-May.
Chilly nights much less unusual then

[SoreTween]

We've suspected we had badgers for a long while so Mrs Tween bought us a trail cam.  It was set to activate at 21:00 last night.  Long wait