Lots of badger activity at the moment – the poor pine marten turned up at 4am one night to find that every single nut had already been consumed by badgers which had been coming and going since about 8pm.

I’d put a bit of leftover roast pork out for the creatures, and just after 5am the fox found it. It was just starting to munch on it when a white streak shot across the screen – it was one of the cats but too fast to see which one. The fox fled for its life. Two minutes later the camera activated again with Schrodi sitting on the stone where the meat was – so I guess the victor was him. So the fox is terrified of the cats, presumably because although he is larger, they are in their home territory. He couldn’t have been that scared though because half an hour later when the cats had gone he was back to finish his dinner.

We had another wonderful creature night as always seems to happen when we get a mild one in winter; pine marten, two badgers and the fox. Plus there were deer crashing around in the trees when I was out making a bonfire this afternoon.

The picture is of the fox just before Schrodi swooped in.

But yesterday we got a nice shot of a badger – unusually this time it was in the daylight – around 5am.  I actually think what tripped the camera was the large crow you can see in the foreground.

Click on the image to see the video.

However, the cats do set it off because they pass close to it coming out of their flap, and this has alerted us to a behaviour we didn’t know about.   They sit, often for long periods of time at night in front of the bird feeding area.  At first R and I thought that their hobby was badger watching and that they were interested in our striped friends (whether wanting to be friends with them or wanting them to go away who can tell), but then R worked out what they were doing after he saw Schrodi pounce on a mouse that had come out to feed on the spilled nuts (he brought it alive into the house two minutes later).

So the cats’ hobby isn’t the rather exotic “badger watching”, it is good old simple mousing.

Click the picture to see the video

The heron is catching so many of the poor frogs that today for the first time I tried shoeing him off – just to give them a chance of enjoying their conubials in peace for a while. But to no avail; three times I chased him, and each time he was back within half an hour. The ducks are also spending nearly all their time on the pond at the moment – they are very sweet the way they sleep on the water with their heads tucked under their wings.

Then this evening there was one mature red deer hind and a yearling – presumably her offspring from last year grazing on the back lawn. Hopefully they will keep clear of the daffodils which are now coming into full bloom. As soon as R saw them he ran to get the anti-tick liquid for the cats – it is about that time of year again.

The picture is a bit of a cheat as I didn’t manage to get a photo of the heron today. As you can probably tell from the lush vegetation, that one was taken in the correct location, but in June last year.

R and I scared a heron off our pond this morning and there are plenty of signs of spring around the village, but the snow being back definitely shows us that winter has not departed for this year as yet. There were also some good tracks down our drive which are definitely not the cats so must be a badger or fox.

I’d love to be off for a mountain walk today, but unfortunately (or from the point of view of the company finances, fortunately) I have tests booked in until the end of the month.

These are some views of the snowscape and tracks this morning.

Fearing that he was either fighting with another cat or was being attacked by a fox, I ran outside (in the interests of modesty I won’t state what I was wearing at this point, but suffice it to say it was good that it was a warm night). Outside the screaming and dragging noise was much louder. I ran to the edge of the wood and called for Schrodi but to no avail, and after about 30 seconds the sounds died away. By this point I had been joined by R with a torch and we were both desperately worried that Schrodi had been attacked, but when we went and got our cat locator, we realized that he was actually down in the village. But to put my mind at rest, I went to find him, while R tried to persuade Tora out from hiding under our car.

I found Schrodi just outside the village (minus his collar but that’s a different story) and much against his will, carried him home. So the strange noises were nothing to do with either of our cats, because one had been inside, and the other had been half a mile away. R then had the bright idea that something might have been recorded on the webcam. Sure enough, when we looked, about one minute before the noise started there was the scene on the video above (click on the picture for the video). We are 99% sure it was the two badgers tussling with each other and yelling (or whatever the noise badgers make is called) as they crashed through the bracken.

This was a big relief as at least we didn’t have to worry about a mystery animal, but I can’t say after that adrenalin that I slept very well. Particularly as Schrodi then brought me a mouse at 4am.

So not sure if the badgers were fighting or mating (apparently badgers can mate at any time in the year).

I wouldn’t even have attempted this with a pine marten (they are very very skitty and would be straight off if they heard a sound), but the badgers are pretty phlegmatic, so I very quietly eased the window open and leaned out with my camera at full zoom. I must have only been about a yard from him, and I am sure he knew I was there, but he just went on steadily munching.

Unfortunately he refused to turn round until he had more or less finished his nuts, so I got lots of pictures of his back; but just as he was going, I got one really good one. I am going to try that again next time I see them – and give it a go with video.