Our garden is now full of birds, since we started to put out food. But you may remember from our last post , we started feeding and getting night-time visitors, who were digging up the grass. So in order to find out what was visiting at night we purchased and set up a Trail Camera. And after a couple of false starts, we managed to find out what was digging the holes, Badgers.
Setting up a Trail Camera proved to be a fairly steep learning curve. If like us, you are setting one up for the first time, here are a few tips. Buy expensive batteries. The first few nights we set the camera, we got about a second or two of video. The reason, the batteries we used. Although exceeding the manufactures specs, were not providing enough power to shoot for longer than a few seconds of video, before the camera shut down due to a lack of power. High-powered batteries cured this problem.
Don’t follow the instructions. Our camera suggested a metre or two above the ground and a low PIR sensitivity setting. Again, after a few attempts recording nothing we filed the instruction manual and worked it out for ourselves. Positioning it at a height of a metre or two, above the ground and setting the PIR sensitivity to low won’t work for small mammals like Badger. You need to get the camera about a foot off the ground and whack the PIR sensitivity up to the highest. Testing, by crawling on the grass, eventually revealed, that this was the only way to actually record a Badger, even if it walked in front of the camera.
Once we mastered the trail camera, we were able to see when the Badgers were visiting. We found, that they were coming in earlier than we thought, it was just we weren’t looking out the window. Now we get to watch the Badgers live.
Even the lights from the house don’t seem to put them off. Over the last week we have increased the amount of light spilling out from the kitchen window. So far the Badgers are more interested in the free food than the light. The light levels now provide us with easy viewing. The last few nights, we have had at least two Badgers visiting each night and from the videos we think a third individual pays a visit later on. It’s difficult to be 100% certain, but from the body shape, it looks like a different animal.
Now we can watch the live show every night, we have moved the Trail Camera into the wood. As we write, it’s set up on one of the paths that crisscross the wood. We’re hoping to find out where the Badgers go after they have polished off the peanuts.
It is a rare privilege, to watch these wonderful creatures, night after night. But watching them we are reminded, in other parts of the UK Badgers are being killed, to try and control Bovine Tuberculosis. With the culling areas being extended by the government, all we can do is to campaign, to try and change this un-scientific killing. With no firm scientific evidence that culling works over other methods of control, it is hard to see why our government continues to ignore the scientific community and listen to farming pressure groups. Stop culling today, it’s been proved it doesn’t work, we don’t need more trials.
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This is great stuff! I’m fascinated to see what else materialises as you settle in to your new surroundings
We now have a couple of regulars and are getting them use to white light to take some photographs.