Episode 14 adventure concludes the Injured Badger Hole series. For the past several weeks I have tried my best to save the life of the injured badger but it would seem I have come too late.
As explained in Episode 01 of the series, I monitored the badger’s sett with a trail camera, but because European Badgers (Meles Meles) always dig complex setts with multiple exits and sometimes parts of their setts are taken over by other animals, I wanted to know if someone else lives there with him and set up the trail camera at a side exit.
Unfortunately, upon the first night at the side exit, my trail cam disappeared and remains gone to this day with absolutely no trace of it anywhere. I had to order a new game camera and by the time it arrived, the badger living in the sett got injured.
The first night with the new trail cam showed him limping and unable to procure sustenance for the winter, so the very next day I showed up with food and kept coming with more food for several days. Sadly, after the first capture of the injured badger on the new game cam, there has not been any new sighting of him. The food I was leaving was eaten by the local wood rats.
Having gone through periods of realization that the bdger may not have made it, I kept the spark of hope that he hibernated early alive, but with the passage of time, even that little spark is waning. Still, I’m not ready to fully give up on the injured badger and will continue monitoring the sett.
The fact that a fox has turned up repeatedly over the past few days makes me wonder if the injured badger hole series doesn’t morph into a “fox in a badger’s sett” series.
The trip which concluded the injured badger hole saga started off with an encounter with three Roe Deer (Capreolus Capreolus). It was a foggy day with haze shrouding the entire area. The roe dashed into the woods and I continued on toward the badger’s hole.
My intent was to leave the area the way I found it. And whereas I temporarily transformed it by installing a wooden box I used to leave food for the badger in, the last thing on the to-do list for the series was to get rid of the box.
Because the box had become a biohazard full of rat poop and pee, the most sensible way to deal with it was by burying it in the woods. It’s made from cellulose, which is from the trees, so it would provide suitable food for worms, bacteria and fungi living in the ground.
Because we’re still well in winter and the ground was frozen solid, I had to pick a ground with looser soil, which happened to be the soil dug up from the sett by the badger. That’s where I buried the box and left the area looking very much like it did when I first found the sett.
But the trail cam remains on the tree to monitor the hole for possible new sightings of the badger, or the return of the fox.
Woodpecker Decker accompanied me on my closing mission, just as he has for each of my visits to the area.
The end of the video is an homage to the injured badger. The compilation of trail cam videos of the guy shows him both before the injury, as well as after. I also included a footage of a wild cat who turned up once and captured one of the rat who lives in the sett, and a Eurasian red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) who also dropped by during a day.
I miss you, badger!
00:00 Disclaimer
00:10 Roe deer at forest edge
00:54 Very hazy day
01:40 Conclusion to the injured badger hole adventure
01:56 Fox tries to enter injured badger’s hole
04:15 Haze visibly moving down into the valley
04:36 Back at the injured badger’s hole
05:34 Woodpecker Decker says “Hi”
05:58 Removing the food box
06:20 Hole where my trail camera vanished
07:14 Digging a hole
08:12 Burying the cardboard box
09:27 Main exit hole returned to original state
09:44 Woodpecker Decker on the same tree where he was for Episode 01
10:13 Trail camera footage compilation of the healthy badger
10:48 Trail cam videos of the badger after the injury
13:28 Wild cat captures and eats a wood rat
13:49 Squirrel at the injured badger hole
Keep rocking :o)
Mark
https://www.nophoneman.com/
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