Badgers have captivated me since as a youngster and at 14 I stumbled, literally, into a sett.
A storm was blowing my scent away and since badgers have such poor eyesight they didn't notice me as I stood among them watching the cubs tumble about my boots.
The experience had me hooked and, 23 years on, I'm still watching them. There is always something to learn about their complex social structure and nocturnal wanderings.
But getting close to badgers has never been easy. They are naturally very wary of humans – rightly so since they have been persecuted for centuries.
They have a particularly keen sense of smell and if they get the slightest whiff of human scent they remain underground.
Over the years I've perched in some very uncomfortable, and usually unreliable, places to try to watch them.
So this year I built a deluxe hide near a sett five metres up a tree.
The clan always appear at dusk or just before and as night falls they gain confidence.
Over the course of the year, the clan have become used to me, and I have got to know some the of the individuals well.
Tufty, my favourite, is a youngish female with a twisted ear. Blaze & Stripy are the dominant boar and sow. Gappy has part of one ear missing.
I've been putting out dog biscuits for them since February. A few of the clan readily eat them; others dismiss them outright.
These ones much prefer to go off foraging. They emerge like clockwork each evening and always disappear off in the same direction.
In mid April I was in for a real treat. The dominant sow appeared out of a far hole and paused to scratch. Her tummy was bald, a sign that she had given birth to cubs and was suckling.
As I watched, a tiny black and white face appeared at the hole, then another one. The sow started muttering some low level contact calls to encourage her cubs out and a third cub appeared. I watched as she groomed their fur before she took them back down to the safety of the sett.
As the weeks went on the cubs became more confident and would go off on small foraging missions with the sow.
One night in early May I spotted a really tiny cub at the opposite end of the sett to the others.
This cub was much smaller than the other two which suggested it had been born later and by another sow.
In badger clans there is a pecking order in which the dominant male and female's cubs are readily welcomed into the family. Other lower ranking females sometimes have cubs, but they need be cautious and will often retreat to an outpost of the sett.
Because of this I was surprised that such a young cub was so close to the main sett.
I named this lone female cub, Twizzle. She was always the runt of the group, just half the size of the others.
But what she lacked in size she made up in personality. She would think nothing of pushing the others out of the way for a dog biscuit.
I named the other cubs too. Two males, the greediest of all the cubs, appropriately became Dyson and Hoover . Their sister meanwhile was Humbug.
As the cubs grew more and more confident, the sow, tired of their antics, often let Tufty take a turn at baby sitting.
One night I saw the boar and sow head off foraging. The cubs followed the sow but she turned to take them back. She picked up one cub up and put it back down the hole before collecting up the others in a similar way.
No sooner had she put them down the hole, when they reappeared behind her! This went on for a few minutes. Eventually she gave up and they all went off together.
I was looking forward to the short nights in June when the watching would be at its best.
Although badgers are largely nocturnal, in the spring and summer the nights are too short to forage and they often venture out at sunset.
They usually spend some time at the sett playing and grooming before heading off. This time is important for them socially as it helps them to cement their bonds. It also makes great badger watching, especially if there are playful cubs around.
But this turned out to be the start of an unsettled period in the clan.
A new male in his prime was trying to take over. Fights broke out and during this time the badgers seemed to be frightened of their own shadow.
It is a dangerous time for cubs when there is a new male on the scene, since he could kill them in order to sire his own offspring.
Interestingly the sows disappeared with their cubs for two weeks. I did not know where they were or whether they were alive. Initially I suspected human intervention.
Shortly after I found a dead boar that I did not recognise outside the sett and wondered what was going on.
By the end of August the clan had settled down, the missing sows and their cubs had returned and the badgers were spending more time grooming and scent marking each other again, a sign that they were much more relaxed.
Badgers are powerful animals and will fight to the death. I suspected the dead one I found was the intruder that was causing all the upset.
September brought near drought conditions to the Wolds . Dry spells don't suit badgers as their favourite food – the earthworm – goes deep underground.
At this time of year badgers are trying to fatten up for winter and those badgers that had previously snubbed the dog biscuits were glad of the extra food.
The badgers have got so used to me now that I can sometimes walk amongst them and even talk to them.
In mid October the two male cubs, Hoover and Dyson, were pushed out by the dominant boar, but they still keep making appearances much to their father's annoyance.
Winter is upon us now, so it'll be interesting to see what goes on down at the sett. Very few people watch badgers over the coldest months as, in the false belief that they hibernate, they expect nothing to happen.
Well we'll see, with a badger sett there are always a few surprises and hopefully I'll be there to see them for myself.
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Wildlife Diary -
