In the sixth minute (6.20) pig-like snorts are audible in the video. The badger has a voice! Although the badgers in many of Looduskalender’s videos are quite silent they actually are able to produce quite varying sounds. In the video here we hear sounds of romping.
The video from the trail camera was assembled by Peeter Anijalg.
Information from the Animal of the Year team 30.07.2016.
In February 2014 we came across fresh badger tracks on walking in the forest. There was little snow and thaw, and so the tracks were very clear and quite easy to see. By them, we found the badger sett. It is located between Põlva and Mooste and it is a rather small sett (only three entrances) but as we saw later it was quite busy. More precisely the sett was in a wedge-shaped coppice that separated two fields, and a couple of hundred meters away from the nearest farmer. Close to the sett there was also a ditch which however in hotter periods dried up.
When the camera was installed plants had not started growing yet and so quite a lot of video material resulted. Likewise in autumn but unfortunately there was much less from the period when the cubs started to go outside. Luckily we were not left quite empty-handed. A couple of times the adults could be seen moving with three tiny cubs near the sett although in a later video only one was visible – we hoped that it meant that the other cubs simply were not in camera view but the possibility that some cubs perished cannot be excluded.
A maximum of three-four adults could be seen at a time and very often serious romping and chasing of each other went on. Probably it was just play although occasionally there was the impression that it was an attempt to drive away the other animal.
In addition it can be seen how the badgers marked their paths – they did so almost every time when they went out from the burrow.
At the end of the video many other animals can also be seen that happened to come near the sett or who even used it as a temporary living place, for instance raccoon dogs.
In an abridged version the video was on the Novaator page in March but here all the most exciting parts of the material that were caught by a trail camera in 2014 have been collected.
Peeter Anijalg
Badger researcher Tiit Hunt comments:
At the start of the video we see three badgers playing and romping; they are quite certainly cubs from the same litter from the previous summer that had spent the winter in the sett. We know that young badgers live in a sett for more than a year and that as a rule the female badger gives birth to cubs every second year. From where then did the small cubs in the video come? The other ones were only a year old. Another badger may come to a sett with her cubs for ” summer holidays”. But it cannot be said with certainty because it is not 100% sure that a female badger might not have pups in consecutive years.
We also see much romping in the video which is not surprising – badgers are actually very playful throughout their life.
