The word has got around and last night there were five separate badgers visiting the peanuts we put down in front of the hide every evening that we are around. It has been so dry this Spring that the ground is hard and worms are hard to come by and so a peanut boost is probably most welcome.

Our visitors last night included these two new adult badgers that I have not seen before:

Also visiting were the female badger and her cub from the sett that we have cameras on. The cub is out foraging with its mother every night now and this does include swinging by here to see if peanuts are down:

The fifth badger is the male we call Scarface

He is very recognisable with this scar over his right eye, a smaller scar over his left eye and a really quite ridiculously long tail which he often holds up in the air:

Sadly, it seems most likely that the cub’s father has died. Although we had been watching the pair of badgers who became the parents of this cub for months, we now haven’t seen the male for over two weeks and, when we saw him last, he clearly wasn’t well.

Since the cub’s father has disappeared, Scarface has been hanging around the sett clearly wanting to join in but is chased away by the female. I understand that is is not unknown for males to kill cubs that are not their own and so its a tense time at the sett on the cliff and one that I will continue to anxiously follow.

And we will keep the Badger Cafe open and serving peanuts, at least until it properly rains again and worms start coming up.