19 December 2013
Quite a cold (3 degrees) and drizzly night. The camera that will only take videos continuously (draining the batteries and filling up the storage) still works for individual photographs. I put it on a tripod in the field on the other side of the exit that I believe the badgers have been taking, through some brambles -- there's now a bit of a trail.
It was triggered 4 times, at 1:49, 1:53, 2:22 and 3:16. The first and last photos showed the top of a badger's head, unmistakeably, as it passed en route from the wood. The middle two were blank, either because the camera was too slow or the fox too quick.
He put in his usual appearance at the sett to check on the dish at 19:42. The cover was knocked off by a wet badger who presumably had been out for a while at 01:35. That badger ate all the food all by, dare I say "herself?". If so, one of the passing heads was surely Benji out foraging.
I think the drill may be to leave by this exit and come back by Edgewood Road.
Both badgers were back at the sett at 5:15 for some mutual grooming followed by some dancing in the rain -- dashing about in the drizzle like excited children, on the path near the rear entrance -- before retiring. They were too far away for the video to be worth posting.