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Image: Eurasian badger (Meles meles).
Home » Eurasian badger (Meles meles) » Articles :
Article 8: Feeding signs
As badgers forage for and find their food, they often leave evidence of their activities behind. This page looks at some of the signs you can find.
See also: 1: Badger setts , 2: Spoil heaps , 3: Bedding material , 4: Scratching posts , 5: Badger paths , 6: Tracks , 7: Badger hairs , 9: Latrines and dung and 10: Other signs of activity
On this page:
'Snuffle holes' | Dug-out nests of bees and wasps | Dug-out nests of rabbits | Related Badger Pages
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Snuffle hole in arable field.
[Image]
Snuffle hole in pasture.
In their search for worms and soil-dwelling grubs of beetles and moths, badgers often dig small pits, scrapes or 'snuffle holes' in the ground. These pits tend to be conical in shape, about 10 to 15 centimetres or more across, with material dug out on more than one side. Badger prints may sometimes be found in the excavated material. Rabbits will also make small scrapes in search of roots, these tend to be smaller, with material scratched from one side only. This material tends to be much finer grained than that dug out by badgers, which have much bigger claws than rabbits. It is not always easy to distinguish larger rabbit scrapes from smaller badger scrapes however, especially as rabbits will visit the scrapes made by badgers - presumably to nibble the exposed roots - and leave their characteristic droppings alongside them. Badgers seem to dig a lot of these pits close to their setts in late winter; freshly dug ones are usually fairly easy to identify and indicate current activity. Such pits may also of course be dug in other places away from the sett where badgers need to dig for food items, or to make dung pits.
Pictures © Steve Jackson. See the Photo File for the photo of the snuffle hole dug in an arable field.
[Image]
Wasp nest dug out by badger.
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Bees'
nest dug out by badger.
Badgers will also dig up wasps' nests, particularly in late summer when the grubs are big and juicy! All that remains is a hole in the ground containing the remnants of the papery nest, and a number of rather unhappy-looking wasps which hang around for a few days in the hole where their home used to be. I once found the remains of the nest of the unluckiest colony of wasps in the world - they had made their nest right in the middle of a sett!
The nests of wild bees are also attacked when they are found. The badgers don't just get a meal of juicy grubs, they also get a special treat - honey! As with wasp nests, all that remains the next day is a small hole in the ground, and a few very unhappy and homeless bees.
Pictures © Steve Jackson. See the Photo File for the photo of the dug-out wasp nest and the Photo File for the photo of the dug-out bees' nest.
Bigger holes are dug by badgers in search of their largest natural live prey - young rabbits. It appears that a badger can smell or hear exactly where the young rabbits are located underground, as it does not dig along the rabbit burrow to get to them, but digs straight down into the nursery chamber from above. The hay and rabbit fur that lined the now exposed nursery chamber is left strewn around the hole.
Find out more about the food and feeding behaviour of the Eurasian badger.
The Eurasian badger photo used at the head of this Article is © Steve Jackson. Credits for the photos used in the right-hand margin of this page for site navigation can be found on the Credits page.
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