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Travel My Hometown In L. Subscriber Exclusive Content. Why are people so dang obsessed with Mars? How viruses shape our world. The era of greyhound racing in the U. Their keen sense of smell and long claws are well adapted to locating and digging into the burrows and nests of small mammals.
In times of food shortage, badgers may also raid bins in search of food. If you enjoy seeing badgers in your garden, there's a range of suitable foods that you can put out. Raw peanuts or brazil nuts could be offered to badgers no salt or chocolate.
Take care when feeding any wild animal so they do not rely on your food source. Badgers are in the Mustelidae - the family of carnivorous mammals that also includes weasels, pine martens and otters.
Badgers are the main natural predator of hedgehogs in the UK. Because badgers have thick skin and long claws, they are one of the few species that can kill and eat otherwise fairly well protected hedgehogs. If you think hedgehogs are breeding in your garden or in a neighbouring garden, avoid attracting badgers and foxes if possible until the hedgehog young are well grown. If you have badgers visiting your garden, they can make fascinating guests.
Their presence produces a wide and varied response from gardeners; some consider them a nuisance as they may root up flower bulbs, eat fruit and vegetables, and dig up lawns. But if you enjoy seeing badgers in your garden, there's a range of suitable foods that you can put out.
Since they eat such a wide diversity of foods, they will probably eat most of what you put out for them or for the birds, or hedgehogs, or the dog , but it's best to stick to foods that most closely match their natural diet. Piling food in a heap on your patio does make life easier for badgers, but you may find it more interesting to scatter food across the lawn.
If badgers have to sniff the food you'll have more time to observe their foraging and eating habits. Leave out plenty of fresh water at ground level for badgers even throughout the winter when other sources are frozen. Feeding small and varied amounts of food on an irregular basis is best, especially in times of greatest need winter and spring or as an occasional treat.
In terms of quantities, feed no more than the equivalent of a large handful of peanuts or dried food, plus the same amount of soft wet food such as grapes per visiting badger. Delayed implantation occurs — blastocysts very early embryos implant in late December or early January, and the peak birthing period is early February.
The typical litter size is two or three. Newborn cubs emerge after 8 to 10 weeks, usually in late April or early May, and have silky, grey fur. Their behaviour is cautious until late May. Newborn badgers show hints of two dark eye-stripes in otherwise thin, silky fur, and by the time they leave the sett they have developed full adult coloration.
They also behave exactly as adults do when threatened, facing the enemy with lowered heads and fluffed-up coats. This displays remarkable confidence for their size, suggesting that the stripes may be a warning. Badgers have poor eyesight, so their stripes are unlikely to be for soliciting grooming or attracting mates, and in Reginald Pocock was one of the first zoologists to speculate that it was warning coloration.
They concluded that the European badger, American striped skunk and other middleweight carnivores evolved dazzling patterns to flag up their main defence anal scent glands in skunks; huge jaws in badgers to predators.
Despite female badgers eating less and living off fat reserves, winter is nevertheless when they give birth to their cubs, which are helpless, blind and barely 12cm long, with a 3—4cm tail.
Yet this makes sense in the long run, explains Steve. To get this timing right, female badgers must give birth between January and March, with February usually the peak month in Britain. Pregnancy lasts six to seven weeks in badgers, so it follows that sows need to fall pregnant in December.
But mating normally takes place in spring or summer. The solution is delayed implantation. She can also ovulate a second time and mate again while already carrying blastocysts from an earlier mating, and still start the pregnancy at the same time to produce a single litter of cubs.
This remarkable ability is called superfetation. In northern Russia badgers seldom leave their sett in winter. In southern Spain, however, they remain fully active since their main food — rabbits — is still easy to find. Badger cubs are born in early February, but life for newborns is dangerous. In the first couple of weeks, up to a third may die underground; most of them will have been killed by sows who have their own cubs.
The survivors emerge from the sett when they are nine to ten weeks old. Keep an eye on the entrance because they will probably remain in it, or nearby, as well as staying extremely close to their mother.
She will herd them below ground at the first sign of danger, and even drag a cub to safety by the scruff of its neck. Sometimes the sow will take her young on short trips while she is foraging, but she is very wary of danger. When a female appeared in my garden with three very young cubs, she spent most of her time rounding them up and trying to hide them in the flowerbeds while she ate the peanuts on the lawn.
The sow was particularly nervous when there were foxes around, repeatedly rushing at them with her back arched and fur raised to make herself look larger and more aggressive. Females with cubs may even corner and kill foxes. A few nights later, the sow had given up trying to marshal her cubs; they chased each other around the lawn, seemingly oblivious to any threat from the foxes. Increase your chance of seeing a badger in the wild with these tops tips from the Jack Reedy at the Badger Trust.
Most rural woodlands will have a badger sett hidden away somewhere, and there are even some small urban badger populations if you know where to look. But if you want the best possible chance of seeing badgers, here are some of the best sites in the UK. By far the most exciting way to watch badgers is to search for an active sett — look for piles of fresh spoil outside, well-worn paths and a latrine pit full of droppings.
The telltale signs of these enchanting mammals are far less attractive than the badgers themselves! Pack a waterproof and extra layers, a hat and gloves in a rucksack — it quickly gets chilly after dark. In summer, take insect repellent. For badger watching, the best binoculars are lower-magnification models such as 7 or 8x with wide objective lenses 42—55mm , because these tend to produce a brighter image in low light.
Stealthily approach your chosen sett an hour or so before dusk.
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