In summer I spend my evenings watching badgers at a sett near my home on the Yorkshire Wolds and I've learned a lot about them. It is one of the biggest badger setts in the area - I've counted 11 badgers here before - and there is a great spot on the opposite side of the valley to sit and watch.
Clean & tidy
Badgers are tidy animals. They regularly change the bedding in their underground setts, travelling short distances to gather fresh straw and then dragging it back down into their chambers. Its quite amusing watching them shuffle down backwards, their front paws loaded with grasses. Badgers have very clear family structures. There is a dominant male boar and dominant female sow and below them is a complex hierarchy. In this sett there are two sows and six cubs which suggest more than one sow gave birth this year.
Badger cubs at play
The way the badger cubs tumble about together is great fun to watch, but these play fights are also an important part of their development. One day these youngsters will need to fight for territory. Listen to the sound of them chittering! Badgers can be so funny. Watch for the moment an adult boar sits down to scratch and a cub mirrors his movements.
Poor eyesight
And the best thing of all for me is that these animals have very poor eyesight. If I sit very still they come very close before they notice me. But great sense of smell But they have an incredible sense of smell so I need to be sure I'm downwind.
