For the couple of weeks I've had the absolute pleasure of watching badgers out of the window where I work. It started when I noticed the appearance of a badger at approx. 5:30pm on my trail camera. I hadn't appreciated that the badgers were moving along the side of the building while the lights were still on and people were moving about. I decided to place a few peanuts in the top of a rotten tree stump in the hope that the badger would return and hang around. It did the

This image a 3 weeks old. I captured it just prior to going away to Russia for 3 weeks. Having taken literally hundreds of images of badgers with their noses in the dirt, I'm trying to capture some more unusual images. First attempt produced this lovely behaviour. #cameratrap #badgers #badger

While I'm still sorting my images from India, I've been deploying my Camera Trap for Cambridge's wonderful wildlife. I'd hoped to catch the fox cubs but only managed one image which wasn't great as one of the flashes failed (loose connection between trigger and flash). However, I was delighted to catch the male fox during the day, so that you can see it's beautiful amber eyes. The local pheasant did some modelling as well, which is OK with me as he's a magnificent creature.

During the recent cold weather I'd set up to hopefully capture badgers in the snow. I don't know whether it was the cold temperatures but one of my ST-28 flashes failed to fire, leaving the images illuminated from one side only with deep shadows across the scene. Most of the images were spoiled but the one below captured the character of this badger perfectly as it marched directly toward the camera. #badger #cameratrap

I've been trying to capture my local wildlife in winter conditions since the first snows of 2018. Various technical issues have prevented it to date and almost intervened again. On Saturday evening I had an intermittent failure of one flash which ruined several images but thankfully I got the image I've been hoping for. The other two images come from Sunday evening after the snow melt. Shame, they'd have been crackers in the snow as the badger is pin sharp. #badger #badgers

I had the best Muntjac Deer sighting ever this afternoon, with a pair of deer in the field for probably over half an hour. Normally they are skittish and pass through the field quickly but today the female sat down against the hedge and almost fell asleep in the spring sunshine. All the time a Muntjac stag wondered calmly around the field, disappearing into and behind the hedge occasionally. It was just charming to watch such flighty animals. My DSLR cam trapping is improvi

The 'Beast from the East' is not just making it inconvenient for people, it's putting our wildlife under real stress. All those unusual birds visiting your feeders are there because they are desperate for food. Our mammals will also be struggling during this prolonged cold snap. I've been putting some food out near my regular badger sett (peanuts and dog biscuits) and there have been some very willing recipients. This badger was photographed using my DSLR camera trap setup

It's been a while since I posted anything. Thankfully I have some fascinating badger behaviour to share. For those you have search for signs of badgers, the presence of badger latrines is a huge give away, both to their presence and what they've been eating. I placed a camera opposite the site of a freshly filled latrine but didn't expect to catch a badger excavate a new toilet and use it. Cool. #badgers #badger #latrine #poo #video

I've been deploying the DSRL camera trap quite a bit in the last few weeks. Among the hundreds of images captured there's usually some interesting behaviour or beautiful poses. Just fascinating to see there secretive animals. #badger #cameratrap

Oh, I'm so happy with the most recent badger selfies. The full resolution images of these beautiful animals are fabulous. Again, five badgers appeared at the camera trap and a couple of them provided the most charming and intimate pose. Edit: On closer inspection of the image with two badgers I noticed that the left eye of the badger on the right has what I think is a cataract. Over the last 18 months my trail camera has been catching images of a badger with only a single ey

I had to look this one up. The collective noun for a group of badgers is a 'cete', not to be confused with their home which is a sett. Thursday night / Friday morning worked out just great for the camera trap setup. I finally ironed out the technical issues, as well as the reward to encourage them to visit. I didn't check the exact number of images of badgers but it must have been well in excess of 200. The maximum number in anyone one image was five, but inevitably most

I'm a bit rusty with the camera trapping after several months. As a result I didn't get the bait right and a pole holding one of my flashes fell over, doh !! We learn from our mistakes....... I hope. Out of the very few images captured, this one was the best. It was certainly what I was looking for, using the lovely old gate as a frame, but my reconnaissance work had suggested I might get a lot more action with the possibility of several badgers and a fox or two. Still, th

At 7pm the large female badger that I'd seen on Wednesday appeared again. She's incredibly bold and pays no attention at all to the sound of the camera. While it's fantastic to have an animal so calm in front of you, the down side is that she never lifts her nose out of the dirt. A tight crop from the first image. You can see a teat, which is how I realised this individual was female. In contrast, this smaller badger was aware of the camera shutter and stopped on a couple

For the first time in months I visited the badger sett I've been monitoring and to my surprise saw this large female within 15 minutes of setting up. Unfortunately, after two days of clear blue skies it turned overcast and light levels within the woods were dreadful. Once she returned to the sett i decided to cut my losses and leave before the whole family appeared. While not great, I managed to catch these images. I'll try again when the evening promises to be brighter.

While most of the UK population was sheltering in their homes from furious thunder storms on Friday/Saturday, Cambridge's plucky badgers were braving the heavy rain and lightening. I guess the camera flashes associated with the camtrap would have been second nature to the badgers after the storm. It's a shame that the lens got rain over it as there was a lot of great action shots during the storm. Next upgrade for the camera trap will be a longer lens hood to protect the fr

I got stuck in my hide for 2 hours with badgers everywhere. Five individuals were around at one stage. I could have done with a wide angle lens to catch them all. This time I also shot some HD video which I'll try to edit and post soon. Until then here's an image from the end of evening. Hard to resist another image of the little fella #badgers #badger

When all the fieldwork comes to fruitation it's a great feeling, but pictures aside it was amazing to watch badgers at such close proximity. At one point it looked like one of the adults might enter the hide !! We think there may have been up to 6 individuals present, but certainly 5 at one time. Much to our delight the cubs were fearless and charged around often stealing food from under their mum's nose, quite literally. We watched for about 35 mins and then decided to le

OK, it's not high quality video unfortunately but it's the behaviour that counts. This video was shot by remote camera traps that I set up near where I work. My interpretation is that the adult badger is probably one of 2014's cubs who still enjoys a bit of play time with this year's cubs. #badger #cubs #cameratrap #badgers #video

Well, we've been building up to this for a long time. After initially finding the sett, then monitoring it, positioning a hide and finally having a great evening's weather to go and watch. Bang on time this nursing sow badger came out of the burrow and snuffled around for half an hour before leaving the sett area. As it was almost dark we left the sett before others appeared as we didn't want to disturb them. Amazing to see a badger just behaving naturally. #badger #badgers