Britain’s Badger​—Lord of the Woodlands

BY AWAKE! WRITER IN BRITAIN

THE silence of the woodland was broken by a blackbird’s song. As the sun sank slowly to its rest, I sat on a fallen silver birch, noting how the smell of wet vegetation pervaded the early evening air after a shower of rain.

I had carefully chosen a seat where a slight breeze would blow toward me because I had come here to watch badgers. The badger’s eyes are small, as are its white-tipped ears, but I have learned never to underestimate its hearing and sense of smell, which are acute. I knew that if it heard me make a sound or got scent of me, that would be enough to send it back underground for the rest of the night.

The European badger is a large, secretive animal, about three feet [1 m] long and one foot [30 cm] high, with an average weight of about 25 pounds [12 kg]. It has a coat of rough gray hair, with black face and underparts, short black legs, and a stumpy gray tail. Each foot has five toes with powerful claws.

The three broad, white stripes running from its snout past its ears are not only its outstanding feature but also a subject of controversy. Some people say that badgers can identify their own kind on the darkest nights by means of the stripes​—yet, we know that badgers identify each other by scent. Whatever the reason for these stripes, they make the badger a handsome creature.

“Old Brock,” as the badger is affectionately known to country folk, is a familiar part of Britain’s rural scene. A habitual digger, a badger continually excavates tunnels, passageways, and chambers to make its home, called a set (in Britain, a sett). This can be up to 100 feet [30 m] in diameter, and the maze of tunnels can be 1,000 feet [300 m] long! The badger is a nocturnal creature, and during the day the chambers in its set are mainly used as sleeping quarters. Special chambers, lined with fresh bedding, are used by the sow when she gives birth to her young.

 The set will have a number of entrances in the open above ground, often by alder trees and among thickets of hawthorn or bramble. Some sets in England, with more than 50 entrances, are known to be well over 150 years old and can accommodate several generations of the same family. Badgers may live for 15 years or more, although 2 to 3 years is the norm.

With large mounds of earth sloping down toward its entrances, from which earth, stones, and rocks have been cast aside, a badger set is not difficult to recognize. You realize how strong the animal is when you see what has been thrown from the set.

How do you find out if a set is occupied? First look around for the badgers’ latrines​—shallow pits from six to nine inches [15 to 23 cm] across and nine inches [23 cm] deep, which surround the set. If there are droppings, and especially if they are fresh, then the badgers are in residence. Look also for well-trodden paths spreading out from the set, and in summer months look for flattened vegetation. In a muddy area, watch for badger footprints, or close by the set, check for trees with mud marks and scratches where the animals have reared up to stretch, catlike, with their strong claws. If the set is large, observation can prove difficult, for the badgers may be using another entrance or exit. So go early in the day, and place sticks over each hole. Next morning, you will see which exits have been used by the emerging animals​—the sticks will have been thrust aside.

In its quest for food, a badger will travel far at night, seeking out acorns or beech mast, or it may scent and dig out young rabbits or a wasps’ nest for its larvae. What is its main diet? Earthworms! The badger will eat almost anything​—including wild fruits, bluebell bulbs, mushrooms, and beetles. I remember watching badgers one very wet night in July, and they never moved far from their set, for in the coarse upland grass, there was an abundance of black slugs, a delicacy, brought out by the rain.

Badgers usually mate in July, and a normal litter of four or five cubs is born in February. When the cubs are about three months old, they appear above the ground, playing at the entrance to the set. When the cubs are out and about, bedding is renewed by both boar and sow. Badgers are tidy animals and keep their sets scrupulously clean. Spring and autumn airings of the bedding are usual but can take place any month of the year. The parents drag out the old, dry grass and bracken and replace it with fresh​—gathering as many as 30 bundles in a night. These they hold between chin and forepaws as they shuffle backward and then down an entrance of their set.

From a gland beneath their tail, badgers secrete a strong-smelling fluid onto tufts of grass, stones, or fence posts to mark their territory. They will even anoint each other for recognition. By means of these scent marks, a badger can easily find the entrance to its set when backing into it.

The song of the blackbird had died away, and all was silent in the darkening wood. Hardly daring to breathe, I sat perfectly still, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw the black-and-white mask of the badger appear. For a few moments, the badger stood at the entrance to its set, testing the evening air for danger before moving off into the night​—for all the world like some lord of the manor going for a stroll around his ancestral estate.

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Chamber used during birth of cubs

Sleeping chamber

Bedding

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Badger cubs

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The badger’s diet includes acorns, mushrooms, and earthworms

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Badger photos: © Steve Jackson, www.badgers.org.uk