In the Week in the Forest corner on the Animal of the Year home page we start monitoring the doings of a couple of badger families and events in their home forest by trail cameras.
We start the observations at a badger castle in Harju County. The castle is small, with just four openings and is the home to one badger pair. It is a quite typical castle. Larger castles with more entrances are rather more rare.
Winter here passed peacefully. The badgers slumbered in the rear chabers, a raccoon dog pair had settled in the front ones. A fox also came to visit the den and had a nap there a couple of times. Badgers don’t like such communal living but what to do?
The Hepatica and thrush spring is in full force. The morning forest rings of bird song and as usual in early spring it is cooler under the trees than out in the open. While spring has advanced in the forest verge towards the village, the warmth there is held off by the cold of the surrounding bog.
In the beginning of the trail camera video a song thrush is heard. It sings directly above the badger castle, probably in the top of a high spruce. In the cut with the song thrush we can also see the female of the badger family whose fur has lighter patches on the sides. The light underfur shows in patches that have been made visible by the male in the springtime romps. In the other video cuts the male badger walks on top of the castle.
If you are not looking particularly carefully, the ground around the Hepatica growing at the edge of the castle does not seem particular in any way. Yet all moss tufts here originally come from elsewhere, having spilled from loads of new and dry nest material that the badger family often changes in their chambers.
A large load of nest lining material brought together and for some reason left in the forest.
