Tag: badgers

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The Father Christmas Webcams are now working I have put…

The Father Christmas Webcams are now working.

I have put a new photograph on the Photo page. As you can see by the date, the photograph was taken over three years ago. The URL www.watchingwildlife.co.uk is another you can access Denbury Farm from. The Badger is coming out of one of the Sett entrances, very close to the lower feeding site. I may leave the camera on the Sett entrance every now and then.

This was the first part of the Badger Sett that I found when I was looking for a place to set the webcams up. It was the closest to the Farm House, about twenty yards away. There were only three Badgers in the Sett when I first found it. We rarely saw any Badger on the webcam, as the entrance was only used occasionally. Unbeknown to us at the time, the main entrance to the sett was the one that the Badgers still now use the most. It was very well hidden, and over twenty five metres from the lower sett entrance. I found the entrance by putting feed down in the field, that the entrance of the Sett leads onto. At the time before Safeway’s Supermarket was taken over, they use to let me have all of their bakery waste for our Wildboar. How they ever called it waste I will never know. Some nights when we collected the waste, there were as many as thirty black bin liners, full of cream cakes, sticky cakes, bread and other special breads and fancy bakery items, all in date by one or two days. We had the best fed Wildboar ever, we didn’t do bad either. It didn’t take the Badgers long to find the cakes, that led me to the main Sett entrance.

When Morrison’s took Safeway’s over they stopped letting us have the waste and skipped it all, to be put into landfill. Just as well as the Wildboar were obese and I was getting stung many times a day, by Wasps. Within a couple of weeks we managed to find a fruit and veg wholesalers who let us have their waste. Again how they called it waste I will never know. A lot of it was thrown away because of items being over ordered or not sold. One day I picked up hundreds of punnets of perfectly good English Strawberries. This was also a regular occurrence with both the fruit ans veg. The Wildboar diet was a lot healthier, as was ours.

They are not flowers Elsie, they are rain drops, and we are getting plenty of them since I wrote on the Diary how dry it has been. I must have put a jinx on myself. With the amount of rain we are getting, the Horses are coming in every night. It makes for more work having to muck their stables out every day.

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Sue I try to feed the Badgers earlier so that…

Sue, I try to feed the Badgers earlier so that I can see what I am doing. Although the Badgers Sett is very close to the Farm House, on both places that I put the food down I have to climb up a steep embankment to get to the feeding places. Getting to the main feeding place is quite steep and slippery, but the lower feeding place is a nightmare to get up to. To get to it I have to climb a very steep embankment a good thirty feet up. I have a rope to try to stop from slipping down, I also need it for pulling myself up the embankment, but even with the rope I have very often slipped from top to bottom on my backside. When it is wet or icy I don’t like climbing up, as for sure I am going to come down a lot quicker than I went up. This year I have got my Lads to cut out steps in the embankment to make it easier for me to climb up, but it still slippery when wet. That is why I feed the Badger in my working cloths, coming down the wrong way leaves me very muddy.

It has been very windy at Denbury today, it is still blowing a bit at the moment. The leaves are being blown off of the trees. The Badgers don’t like the wind. Normally when I feed them a few are waiting near the Sett entrance, and just out of site of the cameras a bit down the embankment where you can see them scratching themselves. When it is windy they only seem to come out after I have put the food out. I was back in the Farm House before any of them came out tonight.

The wind made Bliss and Misty hard to work with today. Both were on the toes all of the time that we were working with them. Couldn’t do to much with Misty, she is still quite lame and very uncomfortable on her foot. It is only just over a week before they are going to France, so Misty really does need to be working. All that we can do with her is to walk her on the Lunge line in the sand school. I have just phoned the Farrier to get him to take a look at her. I think that she may have bruised her sole of her foot on a stone. If the bruise is on the inside of the sole, you cant see any signs of it. It is very unusual for a good Farrier not to find out what the problem is if it is in the foot, which it looks like the way Misty is walking on it. Farriers are more likely to sort foot problems in Horses than Veterinaries. The apprenticeship of a Farrier, is or use to be seven years.

Elaine, It is mainly Bats that are flying in front of the camera. Now and then an Owl will fly across, and of course there are Moths. But I must admit at times I see object that I would not swear where Bats. I know a person who is well up on Butterflies and Moths, I will ask her about what may be Moths.

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It looks very much like we have got lucky with…

It looks very much like we have got lucky with weaning Willow. I haven’t seen her taking milk from Lady for about a week. I thought that it could have been that I have missed it. But on checking Lady’s udder tonight she looks pretty well dry. It could well be that it has been difficult for Willow to have got to the udder with Lady being rugged up. Horse rugs have leg straps that go between the Horses legs to stop them sliding about. We purposely left Ladies straps off so that Willow could get to the udder. I reckon the bother of going under the rug to get to the milk has stopped Willow from feeding from Lady. Willow tends to be with Bliss and Misty most of the time, so it could also be that she hasn’t bothered to go back to Lady for her feed.

It will be a blessing if Willow has weaned herself off of Lady. It will not be necessary for us to part them, which is always a very stressful time for both the Mare and Foal. We normally have to stable the Mares and put the Foals in a paddock on their own. Both continuously are calling for each other for as long as three weeks. Even then when you let the Mares out of the stable, they will look for the Foal in what ever field you turn them out in. On saying that Bliss and Misty were very good last year, it was only the Mares that were calling out.

I keep the Bird and Badger feed in an old chest freezer in a barn opposite the Farm House. I always tend to drop a bit of the feed on the floor, of course that encourages Rats. Every evening that I went in to the barn I heard the scuffling about of what I thought were Rats. If ever there was to much feed when I got a new delivery, I would put the bags that I could not get in to the freezer, over the bottom half of the stable door, in the hope that the Rats would not get to it. Of course nine times out of ten they did, causing the bags to spill some of their contents on the floor. A couple of days ago I saw some animal quickly dart in and out of the barn. I didn’t get a good view, as there was a machine that I had left outside the barn door, and the sun was also shining, making it difficult for me to see what ever it was properly. Of course I thought that it was a Rat. I was surprised, as I had baited the barn a few weeks before and their was still some of the poison were I had baited. This morning I saw the animal again coming out of the barn. Again I only got a quick glance, the shadows showing the shape rather than the colour. The shape was definitely that of a Stoat or Weasel. It could have had a home in the barn for a while, or had started using it for a food source of the poisoned dead Rats. If the latter is the reason for it being in the barn, it may well get secondary poisoning from eating the dead poisoned Rats.

The Badgers were not all feeding at the same time tonight. I only saw eight at one time. Four on one camera and four on the other. I am sure that they were all there over the evening. You know I can never remember when they start to be seen less. Badgers don’t hibernate, but they do tend to be a lot quieter late Autumn and Winter. The first year that we showed them on the cameras, there was a long spell of not seeing any at all for some weeks. Last year If I remember correctly, a few Badgers would feed over a long period most nights. It could well be that they are starting to quieten down. Although it could also be the fireworks, and every now and then the wind is a bit gusty.

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I read that someone wants the closeup camera of the…

I read that someone wants the closeup camera of the Lock of the Lowe’s Squirrel and Pine Martin back. The camera was changed over, as focus was really out of a night. I sent a new camera and lens up to the centre last week. They Hope to have it working this week some time.

On Sunday the Badgers were a bit jumpy, our new holiday guests were using the hide, they possibly may have spooked them. You can always tell if the hide is being used, by the Fox not being about. You would think by the way that the urban Fox ignore humans, our Fox would be use to them by now.

Those Rabbits are big. I should think that they are getting a bit of the Badger feed. If they get much bigger they may be t slow to get out of the way of the Fox or Badgers, to both they would make a good feast.

Sue should have been at Minehead for the past two evenings. We went there last night for fish and chips. Didn’t stay to long as it wasn’t to warm, even with a jumper on. Tonight was a different story, it was so warm that we didn’t need jumpers, and for a change we had a Chinese take away. Bit messy on the beach, but well worth it. It did start to blow up a bit. Time to get back to Denbury.

Our boiler stopped working last night. I have been smelling oil around the tank area fr a while. On checking the tank the bottom had started to rust away. It looked more like a sieve than a tank. I knew that I would have to change the tank sometime soon, and by luck when I went to our farm suppliers last Saturday, they had one on one side. Whats this I asked one of the assistants. It a double tank but the outside tank has a split in it, the inside tank is good but we cant get the outside one renewed, I was told. I jumped in quick, how much do you want for it I asked. I thought that I may have been told two or three hundred pounds. Fifty pounds he said. That fifty pound was out of my pocket and into his hands so quick that I didn’t realise that I had given it to him. What a stroke of luck, it was meant to be. I never for one moment thought that I would have needed it as soon as I did.

I was up very early this morning, to go and collect the new oil tank. The old metal one was well covered in bramble, it took one of my Lads and myself a good hour to clear the bramble, to be able to get the old tank out. We needed to get a rope around the tank, to pull it out of its place. The only way we were going to move it was to drag it out with my car, with my Lad driving. Instead of just pulling it out, it started to tip forward, it didn’t help as it was a steepish incline, and then it suddenly started to roll, how this big heavy metal cube could roll as quick as it did I will never know. It must have weighed three hundred weight, and there it was bouncing and rolling into the direction of my car. The car was attached to it by the rope, so there was no way that my Lad could get away from the tank. I screamed out to him to pull it as fast as he could, in the hope that once off of the incline it would stop rolling. Fortunately it did and the car and tank came to a standstill, a good hundred yards from where it started.

Now to the point of the story, when we looked behind the place where the tank was, we found what looks like a new Badger sett, that our Badgers have started. It could be an extension of the main sett, but I am not to sure, as there is a large rock area in between the main sett and the new excavations. We have built two stables into the rocks, that is how large and rocky it is. It is also a good twelve metres from the nearest hole of the main sett. The main sett, if it is an extension would now be a good fifty metres plus. The new sett is just a few feet from the farm house.

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I hope when I turned the camera over that some…

I hope when I turned the camera over, that some of you saw the Badger trying to get peanuts out of the Bird feeder. To get to where it was, it needed to climb a tree. I suppose it was about seven feet off of the ground. It would not have been over hard to climb, but I was surprised that it managed to get to the feeders. The tree fell over last year. It s old variety of apple from the old Cider Orchard that most Somerset Farms would have had to make their own cider. There are about six Apple trees on the bank where the Badger Sett is. They are very old. As the trees on the bank get old their roots get weaker and they start to slip down the bank, that is very steep, and between thirty to forty feet high from the path that you some times you see the Fox, Rabbits and Pheasants feeding below the other feeder that we show. I regularly slip from top to bottom when the ground is wet after rain.

The Badgers were out quite early tonight. A couple of this years Cubs were being a bit brave and were waiting in the open for me to put the food down. I shook the feed bags a couple of times and they ran back to the Sett. The new camera on the set did not go over to IR mode last night and I had to replace it this morning. Unfortunately I did not get the focus right. As it is a fixed camera I have to adjust the focus on at the camera. I will get it adjusted correctly for tomorrow. The position look about right, and it should allow a better view when the Badgers are playing by the sett entrance. I will get the other camera up to show the back of were the Badgers come out of the hedge. I will also try to get a microphone going.

The Badgers are increasing the size of their Sett. The bank where it is fifty feet plus in length. Most of it is the Sett. It is very steep ground that other than trees would be little use in farming. We need to watch that sett is not going to far into the field at the top of the bank. When I was fixing the new camera my feet went down a few holes that had been dug. They cant be seen when the grass is long, so we are unable to put the horses in the field unless we electric fence off all along the top of the bank where the holes are.

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The Swallow chicks were not to keen to leave the…

The Swallow chicks were not to keen to leave the nest. When I turned the nest camera on this morning two of the Swallow chicks had fledged. There was only one left and that was balancing on the wire next to the nest. When we returned from feeding the Horses that had also gone. I joked that with the rain that we were getting, they wouldn’t stay out to long. I turned the new Swallow nest camera on until this evening when hopefully the fledglings would return. Half an hour later on checking the nest they had returned, bit to wet outside, I should think. One has been in and out of the nest, trouble is the other two are hoping it has food for them. With the rain that we have been promised, the fledglings could be in for a very precarious time. It was good to see that they have returned to the nest tonight, after leaving the nest when it brightened up this afternoon.

Although the final report by the Government’s Independent Scientific Group on bovine TB, that was published today, advises that Badger culling would be meaningless, there is still the decision of the Government to be made. You would think as most logical people would, that the decision on the cull would be made on the report published today, and all the other evidence from both Government departments and outside bodies. Not if The National Farmers Union has anything to do with it. A recent report on a Badger cull in Ireland, clearly shows that in spite of their cull, the are increases in Bovine TB in all of the areas of the cull. Other evidence indicates, that Cattle are the cause of TB in Badgers, and it goes on and on, with no evidence that Badgers cause TB in Cattle. Cattle testing in herds before movement, has also shown a large decrease in incident of the disease. The National Farmers Union cant let it drop, they have been kicking the same ball about for years. It wont matter what evidence you put before the NFU, they will never accept it.

It hasn’t of course, but if the report published today had of found overwhelming evidence that Badgers were the cause of Bovine TB, and that a trail cull should take place. What would have been the outcome if the trial had shown a reduction in TB. Eliminate every Badger? That is what it would suggest. And would it be right. Of course not. I am confident that the Government will note all of the overwhelming evidence against a Badger cull.

I have just found this statement from the National Farmers Union, on the BBC website of today. Quite obviously they are not interested in scientific evidence, more in trying to save face.

National Farmers’ Union president Peter Kendall said he would seek urgent meetings with ministers and officials to devise a culling strategy that would make a worthwhile difference to the disease situation. “I simply do not accept that the industry cannot devise a culling strategy that will reduce the reservoir of TB in badgers,” he said. He added that better testing and tighter controls on cattle movements would be worthless unless something was done to stop the “relentless cycle” of re-infection of cattle in the TB hot spot areas by disease spreading from badgers.

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We managed to get one of the two new cameras…

We managed to get one of the two new cameras up and working today. It is a fixed camera that is positioned to look at where the Badgers come out to feed. As you see the Badgers come into view the sett entrance is just a matter of inches away. It has taken a couple of days to run the wires and fit the camera and other parts needed to get it working. The wires have to run in the trees and all along the Badger runs, that they use to get to one sett entrance to another. It has to be got into the roof space of the farm house, then about forty feet in the loft before being run to the ground floor of the house, out of site. Not a job I particularly like. To make matters worse the runs of sett are through bramble. I finish up being scratch from head to toe. The picture will probably need adjusting once I see how it looks tonight. I will be showing it on different cameras, including the Swallow camera. It should be a good position as often the Badgers use the spot it is positioned on, to play and socialise, the trees hide that area from the main camera. Let me know what you think.

As long as the piece of equipment I have works, I will try tomorrow to fit another camera to the rear of the entrance. The piece of equipment hopefully will allow me to put two signals over one wire, so two cameras should work. The manufacturers reckon it will, let hope they are right as the equipment is a few hundred pounds. I will be jumping about if it doesn’t. If it does work we should be able to see more of the Badgers. I am also going to put molasses onto the jump. I should think that they will like the taste, if they do it will keep them out longer.

I have been watching the new camera as I am writing the Diary, and can see what needs doing to make it better. For the next few days you may see that I have been trying different angles and height,

Anjela asked about the Rats around the lake. The Rats ate a lot of the poison, and as they had not eaten any for a couple of days, I moved the cage to the area of camera one. As much as I did not want to put the poison down in that area, I really had little option. I tried various other ways of getting rid of them, that were a waste of time. There were to many large Rats to allow them to keep breeding, without me doing any thing about it. They started to take the poison today. It will take a good while to clear the area. I will have to start checking two or three times a day to make sure no animals or birds eat any of them. I wanted to put the cage by the Bird feeders around the lake, that will have to wait until I can get my hands on a new cage, or the one I have got is able to be put there. To make sure that the Birds do not eat the poison I manage to get an old Magpie cage trap. Inside of that I put a petrol can with holes at each end. The Rats need to go into the cage and then into the can to get the poison. I have also covered the cage up with a piece of plastic with room at the bottom for the Rats to go under.

There are a few breaks in the clouds tonight, not enough t put the telescope on, but I maybe able to try the piece of equipment that was sent to me from the US.

Elsie, didn’t get the photos.

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The paragraph below had been has been written by Dr…

The paragraph below had been has been written by Dr.Barry Yates, Manager of The Rye Harbour Nature Reserve. I am hoping to twist his arm for him to write about the Reserve twice or more a week.

Rye Harbour Cam 2 update. Today the first Common Tern chick hatched, and now it has about 25 days of non-stop feeding and growing ahead of it. At first the chicks stay in the nest with an adult, while the other parent goes off to find suitable food – perhaps a shrimp, or flat fish, but ideally a sand eel. As the chicks get larger and don’t need the protection or warmth of the adults they will start wandering around the island and swimming in the water with their tiny webbed feet. With over 80 nests of Common Tern and half a dozen of the Black-headed Gull on the web cam island it should provide much interest. BUT BE WARNED, many chicks will not survive, perhaps due to starvation of bad weather, or attacks from Herring Gulls or Foxes or Badgers (yes, even on islands). It is a hard world for most wildlife and here at Rye Harbour we try to help the seabirds by trying to exclude the Fox and Badger using electric fencing. In this way we have built up a large and successful population of many ground nesting birds that are declining elsewhere – such as Lapwing, Skylark, Redshank, Grey Partridge and many others.
Barry Yates

We nearly had a disaster with Branston and Woody this evening. When the Horses came in for their feed, I somehow forgot to close Woody’s stable door. Not the brightest thing to do. When we noticed that I had not closed the door, Branston was in the stable with Woody. Fortunately Branston was helping Woody eat her feed. Not like Woody to allow that, I would have expected her to have got rather annoyed, and to at least of bitten Branston, if not a hard kick. Two days earlier it would have been a different story, as although Woody was unwell she was in season, she could have well finished up being mated by Branston and put in Foal. The last thing we would have wanted for Woody. I wasn’t sure how Branstone would be if I went in with him and Woody in together. We managed to get him out of the stable with waving arm and moving Woody’s feed outside. It could well have turned out differently.

Jan from Herts asked would a Badger cull effect the Badgers the Badgers at Denbury. until a Government announcement on a cull is made, probably some time this month, we really don’t know. For sure some part of the Southwest will be used for the experiment. It was when a gassing cull was tried some years back. The public and media out cry stopped the gassing. Rumour has it that any cull this time will be by licenced shooting. We will give details of any licenced person on this site, for they will need to apply for the licence. Believe me any person applying for the licence will not be doing the shooting because of Bovine TB cull, but for the enjoyment that they get out of shooting animals. I know a few of them.

Thanks Elsie email me the photos.

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I shouldn t think that it will be to long…

I shouldn’t think that it will be to long for the Swallow chicks to have fledged. The nest looks far to small for the three of them now. I think that the parents are thinking the same, as I have just seen an adult bring in some hay or straw, surly not to make the nest larger, or do they? Touch wood, at least this nest has survived. The fledglings normally return to the nest of an evening, for up to a week. Although the fledgling from one nest last year return for a bit longer. Unfortunately the place that the nest has been built, doesn’t allow a very wide angle camera view. It would have been good to have seen them returning to the nest, and perching on the wires that the nest has been built around.

The first Swallows nest that I found that was built on a electric junction box, has got 5 warm eggs in it. I should thing two of those wont hatch as they were probably left by the previous occupants. When the fledglings stop returning to the current nest, I will be able to move that camera, to show this nest. I have also found another Swallows nest in one of the barns. I put a camera up and I showed it this afternoon. I don’t think that the eggs have hatched yet. I will be able to move the camera to show a Dove nest that is in the same barn. As much as I have tried, I have been unable to find any nests, of other types of Birds.

I am not one who get to excited about global warming. Although I do believe there is a need for us all to be environmentally friendly. Recycling is necessary, as much to protect the world resources and to stop the lose of the rain forests of South America and Asia, for the sake of the creature that inhabit them. Although having rotting food in plastic tubs for two weeks, seems to me a bit of a contradiction. Surly it would be better to be rotting underground, that letting off harmful gases into the ozone layer, every time you open the tubs, to put more rotting food into them. Anyway a long way round to ask, if like here are your Blackberry bushes flowering. I have never seen so many flowers and never at this time of the year. I have never know Blackberries to be any earlier that the middle of August. I cannot imagine that they will fruit twice. A very important part of Birds diet will be missing, as they go into the Autumn.

Last night I saw fourteen Badgers on camera two. I maybe wrong, but I thought that there are a couple more smaller cubs, that were not out with the fourteen last night.

By the end of this month the Government are expected to give a decision on if there is to be two experimental areas for a Badger Cull. And it is an experiment to see if the areas show a decline in Bovine TB after a Cull. There is no evidence that Badgers are the cause of TB in Cattle. Recent evidence and the testing of TB in Cattle before they are allowed to leave a farm, only if free of TB, shows that the movement of Cattle to be the cause of Bovine TB, and that the cattle droppings spread the disease to Badgers. If the Government allows a Cull, it is understood that licences will be given to individuals who apply for the licences to shoot the Badgers. Under the Freedom of Information Act, we will be entitled to know who is licenced. The National Farmers Union, are the main instigators of pushing the Government for a Cull. They have recently had a national advertising campaign to publicise their insurance. Those wildlife enthusiasts who love wildlife and the Badgers, who are insured with the NFU, may consider alternative insurers.

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Sorry tonight is going to be a short Dairy as…

Sorry, tonight is going to be a short Dairy, as I did not finish until late, putting up a new IR lamp where the Badgers and their Cubs have been playing of a night. Although I had put another lamp pointing into the area last night, it was a little to far away to give a good picture. Hopefully the one I have put up today will be as good as that pointing to the feeding area.

I also cleared an area two days ago, so that you are able to see one of the entrances to the sett, that can be viewed on camera one. At the moment there are cables in view. I am running a new cable to show different views of the Sett and the entrance on main Badger camera. If the piece of equipment that I have got works, it should be possible to use one cable for two extra cameras. I have been assured by the manufacturer that it will work. They will know all about it if it doesn’t. I am altering it about a bit, as although there are a lot of Badgers, other than when the Cubs are playing, all that can be seen is the Badgers eating the feed I put down. And they are eating that very quickly. Knowing how the Sett and the entrances are positioned, I should be able to show the Sett in a different light. The camera that are now in place will remain to be the main cameras.

A number of you have asked how many Badgers are there. Some of you have said thirteen, one maybe Fourteen. Tonight I counted thirteen on camera two, but I don’t think that I saw any of the small Cubs in that total, Although I am not sure. When I first put a camera up under three year ago there were three Badgers in the Setts. In two years it has gone from five, to how ever many there are now, depending on how many of the Sows gave birth.

I hope any of you who went into the NASA web cams, that I put the URL on the forum, have enjoyed them. I have only managed a quick glance on this mission. Very often you are able to see inside the space craft and the Astronauts working outside. More often than not with sound.

Over the next few days for very short periods in the day, just now and then, you may see the same pictures on both cameras one and two. That is because I will need to turn the electricity off to wire in the new cameras to get them working.