The dawn chorus started the day  off perfectly at 4.50am, at 6am on my morning walk with my spaniels the sun was shining, I find out  while on my walk that we have some new residents. 

The moorhens have a nest full of young moorhen chicks ! which was a very pleasant surprise, I noted that  our resident  skylarks  were doing their vertical take off”s and landings into the designated skylark plots,while the tree sparrows appeared to be very busy collecting food for their young, as were the yellow hammers.

 Then to my amazement I find that we have another 3 badger cubs much younger than those in or main badger sett  but out in daylight (see the video’ s below)

Two badger cubs playing in the evening sun, these cubs are around a month younger than the cubs at our main sett, these cubs are at a distant sett on our farm

And then there were three  badger cubs

Update 25th May 2o12 … and then there were FIVE badger cubs at the distant sett!!

While walking around or 8 acre wood yesterday afternoon, I nearly tripped over what I thought was a piece of rope!

A metre long grass snake

 The grass snake did not hang around for very long, both of my spaniels ran straight over the snake without realising it was there, but when I stopped to take a photograph  the snake started to move. I was very surprised to see how fast it could travel! I only managed to take one photograph before it was out of sight.

The badger cubs emerged at 8.15pm on Wednesday evening (in daylight) 7 adult badgers were seen out at the same time.

A fallow deer doe passed through the area as did a roe deer buck followed an hour later by a fox.

Most people think that only badgers live in a badger sett, I have seen rabbits a fox and a badger all exit the same entrance from a badger sett ,and in that order many years ago.

If you watch the two videos below you will see two of those species exit from the same badger sett entrance, badger cubs first.

The Badger cubs are progressing well, they are much more active as they get stronger. I have seen them leaping on their Mum’s back and jumping over each other. It seems that the Barn Owl is using the Barn Owl box. Jenny waited until 9pm one evenng when it apeared from the box and after awhile flew off hunting! I have just started making a new Barn Owl Box as I thought the existing Owl Box was redundant.

Below are a couple of photographs of adult badgers taken from our  from “Running Water”  hide  by Jenny C. who was here last week

Below is the badger Mum of the 3 very boisterous cubs

Many thanks to Jenny C. for sending me her photographs

The badger cubs have now reached the stage where they are having REAL fun

(see the video clips below)

How many badgers can you see in the video below?

Wednesday evening was a wet evening with rain falling all night but some of the wildlife (deer and badger cubs) were very busy (see the videos below)

Summer is here, I saw the first two swallows here diving bombing my dogs looking for flies on Monday 30th April, a pair of bullfinches, yellow hammers ,green finches, gold finches, skylarks, have been seen here also a nuthatch all among the many other more common varieties of small birds that have also  been seen here over the past 7 days.

The ponds are now all full and the outlets are running at full bore!! I have to check them at least once a day for obstructions; I would not like water going over the banks of the ponds. It was only three weeks ago I wondered whether or not I would ever see them full again.

The badger cubs seem to be getting stronger and more determined to get out and about although not before 12.30am. 12 seconds into the first video below a barn owl can be heard (you will need your volume on full)  but not seen arriving at the owl box situated in a large ash tree.

One of the badger cubs does not seem as strong as the other two as it could not be seen to get out of the sett.(see below)

Lots of lovely rain this week, the badgers love the rain the more the better as it brings the earthworm to the surface of the ground, so an easy meal is available just when they need it.

We have a kestrel nesting in one of our owl boxes, this is the second time in 5 years that a kestrel has used this particular nesting box

I have been receiving reports from several of our visitors of a loud splash coming from our top pond at about 9pm on several evenings.

I set my stealth camera to over look the pond to see what animal was making the splash,thinking that it may be an otter or a mink predayting the fish.

 Over the course of a week I checked the camera and nothing making a splash was recorded.

Yesterday I was checking the banks of the pond for water leakage when there was an almighty splash in the middle of the pond!! It was one of the large carp that I rescued from our village pond  a few weeks ago leaping out of the water and landing back in the water with a massive splash!! The mystery is now solved!!

It seems we have three separate litters of badger cub’s so far, one female with one cub, another female with two and the third with three cubs.

The female with one cub is pictured in daylight (below) looking to emerge from the sett. She thought better of it and retreated back into the sett for another hour.

The video below shows the females concern that it was just too early to emerge from the sett (I am fairly sure that the discolouration on her head is red soil NOT BLOOD)

The video below is of the female badger with her two cubs out in the pouring rain last night 27th April 2012

Surprise surprise when I checked the camera images from last night there are 5 cubs in the sett toward the end of video  2 (below) another little nose appears in the sett entrance.

The first video was taken when the cubs first emerged last night and show how careful the females are in respect of any predators that may be around as they can be seen keeping a sharp look out while  the cubs are  in between them for safety.

The rest of the joys of spring are there to be seen every morning rain or shine, on my early morning dog walk I normally see two hares, a kestrel fly from one of my owl boxes (where it has a nest) a song thrush  in full song together with a myriad of other  smaller birds including a twite (yesterday) my ponds that were empty last year are now well over half  full just in time for this year’s wildlife  to procreate in or on, they currently have ducks and moorhens swimming around on them.

video 2 (below)

On Monday 16th April I saw my first blackbird fledglings here,  I also noted that a kestrel is using one of the owl boxes near our smalest pond, all of the ponds are either now full of water or on their way to being full.

On Tuesday night  our first badger cubs appeared in front of my camera. (The camera is still set on old time)

Video 1  A cautious emergence by the cubs.

Video 2    The badger cubs are out and about for a short space of time just before it starts to rain

The third video only contains sound which I thought well worth posting as it is the sounds that cubs make   just before they emerge from the sett  They ” witter” ( you will have to turn your sound up full to hear it)

 A very busy evening/night around our badger sett last night with a total of 35 videoa starting with a badger adding beeding from around 8.30pm  until 4.35am when a visit from black feet the fox was recorded. The badger moved  a dramatic amount of bedding in 30 minutes with three separate trips carrying/pulling bedding recorded from 8.30pm. It is uncanny how they know it is going to rain and move the bedding while it is still dry. (it started raining at 11.30pm) 

I had a report on Friday of 31 buzzards having a convention in a local field, they were apparently all feeding of earthworms in the freshly turned soil.

I picked up a road kill cock pheasant on Friday evening and secured it close to one of the badger setts  and postioned a camera to over look it.

The results were interesting and resulted in a quick snatch of the pheasant by an over cautious fox followed up by a badger taking the prize into the sett entrance and devouring it as shown in the two videos below.

The fox snatches the pheasant and runs but not far

A badger comes along and picks up the prize

The fox with a mouth full of feathers (all that is left)

The badger has eaten all but the head of the pheasant and the  fox is still over cautious