The first camera record from the Soosaare badger sett. The capercaillie cock seems to feel at home here. In the first part of the video it has a late pre-lunch snooze and in the second half we can see how gravel is picked up for the crop.
Posted by the Animal of the Year team 14.08.2016
Since there were no signs of badgers in the smaller sett near the two setts that we monitor and where we installed trail cameras hoping that the badgers had moved in there for the summer we went on to a second larger sett in the same forest massif but beyond some large bogs. Another family certainly lives there already; the distance to the earlier sett is five kilometres as the crow flies. There has however not been a camera at the sett up to now and so we don’t know all who live here.
From now on we monitor two setts and they needed names. So we call the sett that we have monitored from the beginning of the year the Salumetsa sett and the new sett, the Soosaare sett.
From the Soosaare sett we at once got badger images. 4 burrow entrances are definitely in use here, there are however even more older burrows without tracks.
But the first at the Soosaare sett was a splendid capercaillie cock. At first it had a late pre-lunch snooze on the gravel heap, then it cleaned its plumage, stretched itself and started picking up gravel. Small gravel is necessary in the craw in order to get all food finely ground. While otherwise the capercaillie eats mainly pine needles then at present it often also goes berry-picking. Lingonberries are just turning red and they are highly appreciated, as by badgers too.
We will also follow the Salumetsa sett and there as well the camera recorded the sett owner. The badger did not bother much with the burrow openings, it seemed to be on a general inspection round. It seems that they have some secret place nearby where they rest from the parasites and where maybe also the traffic is less lively. Here on top of the winter quarters boars root around almost every day, the wolf is a visitor and the village dogs sniff around. But the dogs have fortunately not been seen for some time.
