<!--
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var montharray=new Array("<font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=5><b>Brock\'s Calendar: January</b></font><br><br><font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=3><b>What are Britain\'s badgers up to this month? Brock the Badger will tell you . . . </b></font></p><p><table width='123' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='left'><tr><td><img width='133' height='130' border='0' src='rabbit-02.gif'></td></tr></table>In January the weather can be very cold. If the ground is frozen we badgers can\'t find much to eat, so we spend a lot of time underground. It\'s not too bad if we ate a lot of food last summer and autumn and got nice and fat. We don\'t need so much food if our bodies have stored a lot of fat.</p><p>We still like to eat when we can though. Some animals or birds may die if the weather gets very cold. If we find their bodies we will eat them. A rabbit makes a big meal, and this can help a badger to survive the winter if there isn't much else to eat.</p><p><table width='260' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='right'><tr><td><img width='250' height='157' border='0' src='entrance-02.jpg'><br><font face='Arial, Geneva' size='2'>Photo: &copy; Steve Jackson</td></tr></table>The weather is not always cold in January. Sometimes it is mild and damp, and worms will come up to the surface of the ground. When this happens, we go foraging for worms in the woods and fields.</p><p>Sow badgers are pregnant now. Some will give birth to cubs this month. A mother-to-be will often collect some fresh bedding and take it into her nursery chamber before she has her cubs. Look out for trails of dry grass, or whole bundles of bedding, close to sett entrances. The photo shows a bundle of bedding which has been dropped outside the sett.</p>",
"<font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=5><b>Brock\'s Calendar: February</b></font><br><br><font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=3><b>What are Britain\'s badgers up to this month? Brock the Badger will tell you . . . </b></font></p><p><table width='210' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='left'><tr><td><img width='200' height='137' border='1' src='badger-in-snow.jpg'><br><font face='Arial, Geneva' size='2'>Photo: &copy; Steve Jackson</td></tr></table>February is a very important month for us badgers. Many sows give birth now. Usually there are around three cubs in a litter. Some sows have just one cub, and a few sows even have five!</p><p>Once they have given birth, most sows are ready to mate. Boar badgers like me will check all the setts in the area, looking for sows to mate with. We will do this even if the weather is cold and there is snow on the ground. If you go out for a walk in the countryside on a snowy day in February, watch out for our footprints (see the photo below).</p><p>Sow badgers are also out and about. They need food, not just for themselves, but also so they can produce milk for their babies. They don\'t like to spend too much time away from their cubs though. Sow badgers are very good mothers and like to keep their cubs safe. In fact, they will keep other badgers out of the part of the sett where they have their babies!</p><p><table width='170' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='right'><tr><td><img width='160' height='180' border='1' src='print-in-snow.jpg'><br><font face='Arial, Geneva' size='2'>Photo: &copy; Steve Jackson</td></tr></table>Because the sows keep the rest of us out of their nursery chambers, I have never seen very young cubs. Some sows have told me about their babies though. They told me that their new-born cubs are tiny. They are about 12 cm (5 inches) from the nose to the base of the tail. The tail is about 3-5 cm long (around 1&frac12; inches). They weigh around 100 g (3&frac12; ounces), and they have a very fine covering of silky fur. The sows also tell me that there are very faint stripes on the cubs\' faces even when they are new-born. I am not sure how they know this – it\'s very dark in the sett and we badgers can\'t see very well!</p>",
"<font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=5><b>Brock\'s Calendar: March</b></font><br><br><font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=3><b>What are Britain\'s badgers up to this month? Brock the Badger will tell you . . . </b></font></p><p><table width='210' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='right'><tr><td><img width='200' height='126' border='1' src='road-casualty.jpg'><br><font face='Arial, Geneva' size='2'>Many badgers are killed by traffic at this time of year. Photo: &copy; Steve Jackson</td></tr></table>March is a busy month for us badgers. The weather is usually milder and there is more food to be found. This is good news, especially for sow badgers. Many sows are now suckling cubs and need all the food they can get. The cubs are getting bigger and more hungry every day. Their eyes open when they are five weeks old, but in the darkness of the sett they cannot see anything.</p><p>We often collect fresh bedding material this month, especially when there are cubs in the sett. We gather up large bundles of dry grass, bracken or leaves and take them underground. Bits fall off as we go, and so trails of dry grass, leaves or bits of bracken are left behind. These trails lead right into our sett entrances. You can see these trails if you visit our setts during the day. You might even see a whole bundle of bedding material that a badger forgot to take in.</p><p>Some boar badgers like me will still be looking for sow badgers to mate with, especially in the first half of March.</p><p><table width='145' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='left'><tr><td><img width='135' height='188' border='1' src='road-sign.jpg'><br><font face='Arial, Geneva' size='2'>Photo: &copy; Steve Jackson</td></tr></table>Because we are busy looking for food and mates, we badgers spend a lot of time wandering about now. Because of this, we cross your roads more often. This is very dangerous for us, as there are lots of cars and lorries on your roads. You humans drive so fast, we can\'t always get out of the way. Many badgers are killed by traffic at this time of year.</p><p>I have heard that in some places where badgers cross the road, people have put up special road signs. These signs tell drivers that there are badgers crossing. I hope that the drivers who see these signs will slow down so we can cross the roads safely.</p>",
"<font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=5><b>Brock\'s Calendar: April</b></font><br><br><font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=3><b>What are Britain\'s badgers up to this month? Brock the Badger will tell you . . . </b></font></p><p><table width='310' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='right'><tr><td align='right'><img width='300' height='85' border='0' src='worm03.jpg'><br><font face='Arial, Geneva' size='2'>Photo: &copy; Steve Jackson</td></tr></table>It is a lot easier for us badgers to find food in the spring, especially worms. Worms are very good food for badgers, and we eat them whenever we can. In wet weather during the warmer spring nights, lots of worms come up to surface to mate and to find leaves to eat. All we have to do is wander through the woods and fields with our noses close to the ground. With our superb sense of smell we soon find the worms. We can eat well over a hundred in a night!</p><p><table width='210' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='left'><tr><td><img width='200' height='129' border='1' src='sow-and-cubs-01.jpg'><br><font face='Arial, Geneva' size='2'>Photo: &copy; Steve Clark</td></tr></table>Down in our setts, badger cubs are still growing. During April they explore the tunnels and chambers inside the sett. As they do this, they will come near to the entrances. All the new smells and sounds outside are very exciting, and a little bit frightening too. Not that I was frightened when I was a cub. I didn\'t go out because I didn\'t want to show off. Honest.</p><p>Some cubs will make their first visits to the world outside in mid to late April. The mother badger is usually close by, making sure her cubs are safe. A cub\'s first few trips outside usually take place late at night. The trips often last just a few minutes, and the cubs do not go very far from the sett entrances. Gradually though, the cubs get braver. They come out earlier, stay out longer, and wander further away from the entrances.</p>",
"<font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=5><b>Brock\'s Calendar: May</b></font><br><br><font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=3><b>What are Britain\'s badgers up to this month? Brock the Badger will tell you . . . </b></font></p><p><table width='260' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='right'><tr><td align='right'><img width='250' height='200' border='0' src='cub-01.jpg'><br><font face='Arial, Geneva' size='2'>Photo: &copy; Steve Jackson</td></tr></table>May is a good month for you humans to start watching us badgers. The nights are getting shorter now so we start to come out of our setts while it is still light. Our cubs are also coming out regularly now and it is great fun watching them explore around the sett and play with each other. They will play with some of the grown-up badgers too. I must admit that when there are young badgers about it brings out the cub in me – I do like to play!</p><p>Play is an important part of growing up for the cubs. The chasing and play-fighting helps to prepare them for adult life, when they may need to run or fight for real.</p><p>The cubs are still being suckled by their mothers, but they are also eating solid foods now. Gradually, their mothers will feed them less and less milk.</p><p>There is an increase in mating activity this month. This is because young sows who were born last year are often ready to mate for the first time in May.</p>",
"<font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=5><b>Brock\'s Calendar: June</b></font><br><br><font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=3><b>What are Britain\'s badgers up to this month? Brock the Badger will tell you . . . </b></font></p><p><table width='210' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='left'><tr><td><img width='200' height='153' border='0' src='cubs-01.jpg'><br><font face='Arial, Geneva' size='2'>Photo: &copy; Steve Clark</td></tr></table>Most cubs will be weaned by the end of this month. This means that they will not get any more milk from their mothers, and will have to find all their own food. The cubs are now old enough to go foraging for food with the grown-up badgers or with other cubs. Some will even go foraging by themselves.</p><p>The nights are very short this month, so we usually emerge from our setts some time before sunset.  We also stay out for a while after it gets light in the morning. This is because we need to be out long enough to find all the food we need. If we only came out while it was dark, we would not have enough time to forage. In some places badgers emerge as early as 8 o\'clock (or even earlier), especially if you humans give us peanuts and raisins to eat! This means that you may be able to watch us for around two hours in good daylight.</p><p><table width='190' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='right'><tr><td align='right'><img width='180' height='154' border='0' src='day-nest-01.jpg'><br><font face='Arial, Geneva' size='2'>Photo: &copy; Steve Jackson</td></tr></table>On hot days, some of us badgers like to sleep out in \'day nests\'. These nests are a bit like the ones we have underground in our setts, and are often made with dry grass. We usually make them in hedge, or in a hollow tree trunk, or some other place where there is cover. We also like to make these day nests close to a sett. That way, if a human comes along we can quickly run underground where it is safer. The photo here shows a day nest in a hollow beside an elder bush.</p>",
"<font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=5><b>Brock\'s Calendar: July</b></font><br><br><font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=3><b>What are Britain\'s badgers up to this month? Brock the Badger will tell you . . . </b></font></p><p>Badger cubs are now around 5 months old, and many are about half the weight of a grown-up badger like me.</p><p>Summer can be a difficult time for badger cubs though (and for adult badgers too). Often, there are long periods of dry weather. When the ground is dry, worms burrow deeper into the soil where we can\'t get them. This is bad news for badgers! Worms provide us with food. They also contain a lot of water. So if we can\'t find enough worms, we have to find other food, and water too. If we can't, we might die from starvation (lack of food) or dehydration (lack of water).</p><p>To find enough food and water, we also have to forage over larger areas. This means that we have to cross your roads more often than we usually would. So, long periods without rain in the summer can lead to more badgers being killed by traffic.</p><p><table width='125' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='left'><tr><td><img width='115' height='125' border='0' src='strawberry-01.gif'></td></tr></table>Some of us visit gardens and forage there. Your lawns are like grassy fields with nice short grass even though there no animals grazing them. Also, the soil stays damp even when there is no rain. (One of my friends tells me that this is because you make your own rain with something called a \'hosepipe\'.)  <table width='181' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='right'><tr><td><img width='171' height='100' border='0' src='carrots-01.gif'></td></tr></table>This means that your lawns are great places for us to find worms. We can also find grubs, and dig little holes to find them. Some people also have juicy strawberries or carrots growing in their gardens. These are really good for us if we can't find worms to eat or water to drink. Of course, we often dig holes to find our food in your gardens. For some reason, many humans get upset when we dig holes in their lawns or eat their fruit and vegetables. They don\'t seem to know that we are just trying to survive.</p>",
"<font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=5><b>Brock\'s Calendar: August</b></font><br><br><font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=3><b>What are Britain\'s badgers up to this month? Brock the Badger will tell you . . . </b></font></p><p>We badgers were born to dig! We have strong front legs and long claws on our feet. We use our claws to dig our setts. In August, we often make our setts bigger by digging more tunnels. If you visit a sett during the day, watch out for fresh soil outside sett entrances. This will tell you that a badger has been at work!</p><p><table width='250' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='right'><tr><td><img width='240' height='200' border='0' src='bee-01.gif'></td></tr></table>We also dig to find food. This is useful when we have trouble finding enough worms to eat. By digging into the ground we can find insects and their grubs or larvae. We like to dig up the nests of wasps to eat the juicy grubs. Our thick coats and tough skin protect us from the stings. It is painful if a wasp stings you on the nose though!</p><p>We also dig up the nests of bees. Bees\' nests have an extra bonus – as well as grubs, there is honey to eat. We badgers love honey!</p><p><table width='190' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='left'><tr><td><img width='180' height='139' border='0' src='rabbit-03.gif'></td></tr></table>We will dig for larger animals too, like baby voles and rabbits. Voles and rabbits have lots of young, so they can easily spare a few for a hungry badger. We find their nests with our powerful sense of smell, and dig straight down to them. We are not fast enough to chase and kill adult voles or rabbits. We leave them to our cousins, the stoats, weasels and polecats. They are smaller than we badgers, but they are faster and can chase small animals in their narrow burrows.</p>",
"<font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=5><b>Brock\'s Calendar: September</b></font><br><br><font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=3><b>What are Britain\'s badgers up to this month? Brock the Badger will tell you . . . </b></font></p><p><table width='190' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='left'><tr><td><img width='180' height='139' border='0' src='dung02.jpg'><br><font face='Arial, Geneva' size='2'>Photo: &copy; Steve Jackson</td></tr></table>Autumn is a good time for us badgers. The weather is usually wetter, which means that there are worms to be found. Plus, there are lots of other foods about too! You humans grow wheat, oats and barley in fields. These crops ripen in the late summer and autumn. They are not our favourite foods, but if there aren't many worms about we will eat cereals. We can't digest the husks of the grain, so our droppings are often full of husks at this time of year (just like in the photo shown here). Some farmers don\'t like us eating these crops, but we don\'t take very much really. Rabbits cause much more damage than we do.</p><p'><table width='214' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='right'><tr><td><img width='204' height='100' border='0' src='sweetcorn-01.gif'></td></tr></table>You humans also grow some other crops which we really like. Many farmers grow sweetcorn (corn on the cob). We badgers think sweetcorn is delicious, and I have to admit that we do help ourselves to some.  We do cause a bit of damage when we do this, and we can end up flattening some of the plants. We usually only do this in small areas though, and leave most of the crop for you.</p><p><table width='160' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='left'><tr><td><img width='150' height='115' border='0' src='grapes-01.gif'></td></tr></table>Grapes are another favourite of ours. In some places, you humans grow grapes quite close to the ground where we can get to them. Some people keep us away from their grapes by putting up electric fences (spoil sports!). They put the fences around the grapes when they are getting ripe. We really don\'t like getting electric shocks so we keep away. We think this is really mean!</p><p>As well as eating, we also like to spend some time in the autumn preparing our homes for the coming winter. We dig out our tunnels and chambers, and on dry nights we bring in lots of fresh bedding material. We use this to make comfy nests in our chambers, to keep us warm during the winter.</p>",
"<font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=5><b>Brock\'s Calendar: October</b></font><br><br><font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=3><b>What are Britain\'s badgers up to this month? Brock the Badger will tell you . . . </b></font></p><p><table width='260' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='right'><tr><td align='right'><img width='250' height='167' border='0' src='badger-autumn-01.jpg'><br><font face='Arial, Geneva' size='2'>Photo: &copy; Steve Clark</td></tr></table>At this time of the year, many badger cubs look almost as big as their parents. They are not as heavy as we adult badgers though. In fact, it will be another year before they reach the weight of a grown-up badger like me.</p><p>Winter is nearly here now, so we badgers are spending a lot of our time feeding. When we eat lots of food, our bodies will turn some of it into fat. This fat is stored under our skin. If we can store a lot of fat in our bodies now, this will help us to survive during the winter when food is scarce.</p><p>Luckily, there are usually lots of things for us to eat right now. The woods and hedgerows are full of fruits, and we can feast on blackberries, acorns, windfall apples and elderberries.</p><p>When we eat elderberries, the seeds pass through us and end up in our dung pits or latrines. Some of them will start growing into new elder bushes. The rabbits which share our setts will eat most tree seedlings, but they don\'t like elder seedlings. (One rabbit told me that elder is very bitter.) So any elders which start growing in the latrines close to our setts have a good chance of turning into mature bushes. This is why there are often elder bushes growing close to our setts.</p>",
"<font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=5><b>Brock\'s Calendar: November</b></font><br><br><font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=3><b>What are Britain\'s badgers up to this month? Brock the Badger will tell you . . . </b></font></p><p><table width='260' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='right'><tr><td align='right'><img width='250' height='176' border='0' src='badger-in-nest.jpg'><br><font face='Arial, Geneva' size='2'>Photo: &copy; Steve Jackson</td></tr></table>In November, we badgers start to slow down a bit. The nights are long now, so we don\'t have to come out at dusk if we don\'t want to. In fact, we might come out quite late. This makes it difficult for you humans if you want to watch us at this time of year. You never know when we are going to come out, so if you do try to watch us, you have to be very patient!</p><p>We have spent most of the last two months stuffing ourselves with food, and we are usually quite big and fat now. In fact, many of us are at least two kilograms (nearly 4&frac12; pounds) heavier now than we were in the spring.</p><p>Many fruits and berries have gone now, but we can often still find acorns. If the nights are wet and mild, there will be worms about for us to feed on. If the weather is cold though, the worms will stay below ground.</p><p>We also spent a lot of time over the autumn digging out tunnels and chambers in our setts, and bringing in fresh bedding. With our preparations for the winter complete, we do very little digging or collecting of bedding in November.</p>",
"<font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=5><b>Brock\'s Calendar: December</b></font><br><br><font face='arial, sans serif, helvetica' size=3><b>What are Britain\'s badgers up to this month? Brock the Badger will tell you . . . </b></font></p><p><table width='260' border='0' cellpadding='5' cellspacing='5' align='left'><tr><td><img width='250' height='241' border='0' src='sett-entrance-02.jpg'><br><font face='Arial, Geneva' size='2'>Photo: &copy; Steve Jackson</td></tr></table>We badgers spend a lot of our time sleeping this month. We don\'t hibernate, but we will sleep very deeply.</p><p>Our normal body temperature is the same as yours, 37 degrees Celsius. During the winter though, our body temperatures drop. Our lowest body temperatures are reached in December. The drop can be as little as 2 degrees, but it can be as much as 9 degrees. By lowering our temperature and spending a lot of our time asleep, we use up less energy. This helps us to survive a time when there is very little food.</p><p>Something very special happens to many sow badgers in December. Most sows will have mated earlier in the year, maybe as early as February. After a sow mates, some of her eggs are fertilised. Each fertilised egg grows into a small ball of cells. But then these balls of cells stop growing and just float around inside the sow\'s womb.</p><p>Now, in December, things will change. Each little ball of cells inside the sow\'s womb will become attached to wall of the womb. It will then start growing again. Eight weeks later, that ball of cells will have grown into a baby badger, ready to be born.</p><p>So, December is an important month for badgers. Even if most of us just want to sleep. ZZZZZZZZ</p>")

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