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Image: Eurasian badger (Meles meles).
Home » Eurasian badger (Meles meles) » Articles :
Part 1
How to go about watching badgers at their sett.
See also: Part 2 , Part 3 and Part 4
On this page:
Introduction | When to watch | Where to watch | Related Badger Pages
[Image]
Steve has a close encounter of the furred kind.
Most people probably believe that watching badgers is far from easy, and have visions of having to stay up late at night in all weathers, deep inside a wood, just to get a fleeting glimpse of a badger. Well, sometimes watching can be like that! In my experience however, it is actually quite easy to watch badgers, and to get close to them. In fact it is probably because of this that I have grown so attached to the animals and take such an active interest in their wellbeing. Watching these marvellous creatures in the wild is a tremendously thrilling and rewarding experience, as I am sure you will find out.
The following guidelines are based almost entirely on my own experiences of watching badgers since 1977. Most of my observations have been at one particular sett near Daventry, Northamptonshire, but I have also watched badgers at setts elsewhere in the county, and in Oxfordshire and Dorset. I hope that the guidance that follows will prove useful, and above all I hope that you will enjoy your badger watching.
Picture © Robert Jackson, and used with his permission (thanks bro!).
The period from May to August or September is probably the best time to start badger watching. Badgers often emerge in daylight during this period. If there are cubs, then this is the time when you will see them. And of course the weather is generally better - British summer weather notwithstanding.
It may sound obvious, but the first thing do is to find an occupied badger sett. This sounds a bit basic I know, but it's not much fun watching an unoccupied sett - or a rabbit warren! - when you're hoping to see badgers. If you have found some holes and you're not sure whether they are a badger sett, a rabbit warren or a fox earth, have a look at some of the other articles in this section of the Badger Pages, starting with "Setts and field signs - Badger setts" .
Some setts provide better watching than others, so if you know of more than one, it is worth giving some thought to which is likely to be the best one to watch.
A well-used main sett will generally give you a better opportunity for watching badgers than a less active one, so take a look at the level of badger activity as revealed by the various clues described in the "Identification of setts and signs" pages in this section of the Badger Pages.
You should also consider the characteristics of the sett itself, as some setts are rather easier to watch than others. The sett that I have been watching since 1978 is in many ways ideal. It is a fairly compact sett, with the sett entrances all lying relatively close together, which makes it easy to spot the badgers when they emerge. With large, sprawling setts you can rarely keep all the holes under observation, and there is always the possibility that the badgers will emerge from one of the holes that you can't see. Another useful feature of the sett that I watch is that there is almost no cover near to the entrances (although this is gradually changing as the landowner has planted a number of young trees which are slowly maturing); thick cover around the entrances would make it easy for the badgers to leave the sett unseen.
The sett that I watch was originally situated in an open location. In the early years before the badgers learned to tolerate the appearance of strange shapes (in other words, people!) close to the sett, this did mean that I had to watch the sett from some distance away. In other locations, such as a wood, tree cover may enable watchers to situate themselves nearer to the badger's home. The big advantage of a sett in an open situation however is the lack of twigs and dead leaves which accumulate on the ground in wooded areas and crunch underfoot when you move about. I also find that there are fewer biting insects at "my" sett than at woodland setts (but as the trees mature I await the arrival of a biting insect population with trepidation!). The prevalence of gnats and mosquitoes in woods is an indication that conditions are damper there. Since animals can pick up scents much more easily in damp conditions, this is another point in favour of setts in more open, drier locations.
The sett that I watch has another big advantage over many others in the area. It is situated at the foot of a bank which faces towards the south-west, which means that except when the wind is blowing from the east or north-east, I can sit on the top of the bank above the sett and get a grandstand view of the badgers.
Finally, the owner of the land on which the sett is located is pro-badger, and in favour of public access to the countryside. The consent (and if possible the cooperation) of the landowner is a very important consideration when choosing which sett to watch.
Find out where to see:
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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Text and images copyright © Steve Jackson except where otherwise stated.