With the new hide nearing completion, we are starting to put a couple of handfuls of peanuts out in the first meadow as it gets dark to get the badgers into the habit of calling by. The plan then is to consolidate this for a while and then start to move the little pile of peanuts each night along the cliff towards the hide. The ultimate goal would be for us to be cosily wrapped up in the hide of an evening with blankets over our knees and a mug of tea in our hands watching the badgers and their young snacking on the peanuts just outside.

We have not fed these cliff-dwelling animals before and these last couple of nights have been an interesting new angle for us because we can see interactions between them in a way we haven’t before. In this picture above there are two vixens and the one on the right is completely submissive to the one on the left. If Lefty was facing towards her, the right hand one would be in this submissive posture of ears back, mouth open. Only when Lefty turned away would she get up and eat some nuts. Interesting.

After months of watching both foxes and badgers use the same hole in the fence, this is the first time we have seen both in the same shot. So, who reigned supreme over the peanuts? It was the badger – we also were taking video footage and in the video the badger took a little run at the fox and the fox give ground immediately leaving the badger to polish off anything that remained:

So far so good – we have put peanuts out for two nights and badgers have visited on both occasions. But we have quite a journey ahead of us:

This photo is taken at the new pond which is where the hide is. Currently the pile of peanuts is going down where the hedge is that you can see dividing the two meadows – 100m away.

Who knows how far we can move the peanut pile each night, it will be completely trial and error. I will let you know how we progress….