Readers have badgered me for information
A NUMBER of readers were delighted that I had started to write about badgers, not least because, they simply wanted a better understanding of badger life, and they encouraged me to carry on with this series, and basically fill in the gaps for them on badger natural history.
Delighted to help I thought, so here goes.
Badgers are classified as carnivores, but their diet is extremely varied, so varied that, they have been described as ‘opportunistic omnivores.’
That said, where earthworms are abundant and soil conditions permit, worms are top of the badger’s list of preferred foods.
Badgers will feast on them night after night and at times of plenty they form easily the largest part of the badger’s diet, often as much as 60 per cent. In a single night an adult badger may eat well more than 200 worms.
I have to confess I’m a bit like that with bacon butties and Glossop’s Howard Town Ale.
But when worms are difficult or almost impossible to find, for example in dry conditions, during hard frosts, or in barren areas where they are relatively scarce, badgers will try almost anything edible, including snails and slugs.
Which, is a bit like me, scratting around for a bottle of lager.
Badgers enjoy cultivated soft fruit like raspberries and strawberries and, out in the fields, will eat fallen blackberries and any they can reach on the bushes.
There are anecdotal accounts of badgers tottering as though drunk after over-feeding on fallen plums, and they certainly feast well in orchards on fallen apples, pears and plums.
Oddly, some badger watchers tell of badgers that reject a particular type of fruit put out for them, apples, for example.
By contrast, others tell of badgers tucking into pieces of apple with obvious enjoyment, occasionally trotting off, head held curiously high, with a large piece they clearly want to keep for themselves.
Badgers live underground in a network of tunnels and chambers called a ‘sett.’
Badger setts vary from single-entrance shorttunnelled occasionally used ‘outliers’ to vast, ancient, sprawling underground complexes with multiple entrances extending anything from 20 to 100 metres or more with the some of the largest having more than 50 entrances!
Such elaborate setts can take many years to create and are passed down through generations – some setts can be more than 100 years old.
These are the family homes, used, maintained, and enlarged at will by generations of the same social group.
A clan will typically have one main sett.
Main setts can hold any number of badgers, from the more usual five or six, to 10 or more, and occasionally as many as 20 in the larger complexes.
Main setts often change in size and shape as badgers dig new tunnels and chambers.
This year’s busy entrance with soil worn smooth by the passage of many paws can be next year’s debris-blocked, disused entrance. Why, we can’t be sure.
Badgers do die underground and it’s likely that the rest of the clan move elsewhere in the sett.
When the social group increases in size following successful breeding seasons, more tunnels and chambers-our equivalent of house extensions-are needed.
In addition, tunnels collapse, banks give way, trees crash, taking protective root systems with them.
So badgers have to constantly adapt. It may also be the case that they simply instinctively enjoy digging and like the freshness of newly-dug living quarters.
Generally, a main sett will be in continual use and is apparent by well-worn paths between entrances and to and from the sett.
Several entrances (though not all) will have evidence of excavation apparent by large heaps of freshly thrown out spoil. In most spoil heaps you should be able to find badger guard hairs and often paw prints.