1 November 2019

It was raining hard last evening when Roger's dish was left out for him, so he was introduced to the idea of a board placed on his dish for the first time. As expected he knocked it off and ate the lot, including a generous handful of acorns of which there's an inexhaustible supply just now. Our previous badgers declined to eat them, though badgers are supposed to do so. But Roger has no use for apples which others did eat.

He didn't just knock the cover off the dish. He clearly played with it despite the inclement weather. It ended up against the fence, a long way from the dish. The weather didn't bother Roger at all. He was out and about in the wet until well after 4AM. However, like those of many boys away from home for the first time, his housekeeping skills are open to question. He dragged a lot of bedding out into the rain, something I've never seen a badger do before.

I keep an eye on an unoccupied badger sett on the edge of the wood. It's been used as overnight accommodation by visiting badgers occasionally but, apart from one overwintering a few years ago, it hasn't been occupied at since some of the entrances were bulldozed over when a new fence was installed around the adjacent field. I swapped chips in the camera today for the first time in over month and discovered it had recently recorded... a pine marten.

Some of Roger's predecessors discovered the sett, as have other local badgers, but none have stayed.