badgers – Donich Website

Night of the Sausages

donich_admin — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 22:09:49 +0000

I bought R some super large hot dogs which he didn’t think much to. So with half the packet left over, I decided to put them out for the badgers. This was the result, but not quite what we were expecting (click on the picture to see the video).

I’ve no idea where the black cat comes from or who it belongs to, but this is the second time we have seen it in our camera (the first time Tora saw it off). I hope it has just moved in to the village and knows its way home as we are quite isolated here. I also hope it isn’t a stray, because it certainly wolfed down the (not particularly appetising) sausages.

If we see it again I’ll have to ask around and see if anyone knows whose it is. Cats really are strange creatures – here we are in the back of beyond, and not only does Tora walk nearly a mile to the other side of the village to find another cat to fight, but now we have another one doing the same thing in reverse.

The movie should have the music for “10 green bottles” to go with it….

Two badgers…. Mating?

donich_admin — Wed, 22 Feb 2017 20:37:55 +0000

R noticed a bit of a kerfuffle going on outside his office last night. When we checked the webcam we saw two badgers having a bit of a tussle (click the picture to see the video). Not sure if they were mating, or whether they didn’t like each other (I think the former as I am pretty sure they are the mated pair we see around a lot). Badgers apparently mate at any time of the year – but if the female is impregnated outside December she holds on to the fertilized egg until then so that the cubs are born in Feb (in UK). It is one of my dreams to see some badger cubs, but mum and dad never seem to bring them to see the food providers – or at least don’t until such time as they are not obviously cubs any more.

We have a lot of creature activity at the moment (badgers, pine marten and a mated pair of roe deer – plus the frogs and accompanying heron of course) but unfortunately we had to move the feeding area closer to the web cam so that we could take advantage of the new high resolution camera – which means we can’t see the feeding area out of the window any more. However we have plans to put another camera on the side of the house, plus bring back the one near the pond (on our new high strength outside wireless network).

A Good Night for Wildlife

donich_admin — Fri, 07 Oct 2016 12:29:44 +0000

We’ve been missing seeing our resident badgers over the summer – they have been visiting – but for some reason only in the small hours of the morning. All of a sudden now autumn is here they are back at 9pm. R had the bright idea of moving our light pole into the kitchen – the light doesn’t seem to bother them but means we can see them really clearly. Last night there were two… I’ve only ever seen two at one time, so I don’t know how many there actually are in the sett – I suspect at least four from the number of visits we have some nights.

Anyway – yesterday started when we opened our door at 7:15am to see the young stag who has been visiting us with his mother since he was a fawn standing in the drive not five meters from us. He was off sharpish and I don’t think we will be seeing much more of him as he has been supplanted by a new young one, and will soon be up on the hills getting ready to collect himself a harem. To continue the deer theme – we went on for our walk and heard a stag roaring up on Beinn Donich for the first time this year. Then Mum and this year’s fawn were on the lawn all afternoon – I think they more or less live in the wild part of our ‘garden’ down near the river.

We have a new heron on the pond – I think it is a youngish one because it is significantly smaller than the one we used to see and is also very skittish.

Then to complete the wildlife theme, Schrodi had no less than three rodents during the night – one dead short tailed vole, one dead field mouse, and an unidentified one (as R puts it “a wee brown thing”) which was released unharmed. Apparently cats on average only bring 50% of the things they kill into the house – so if that is true he had six during one night.