Sunday 02/08/09 Back in the hide...

I couldn't make the badger watching on Friday, but did get over to put the nuts out. Saturday I was unable to make the feeding or the watching, but hopefully Carl at the Centre did the feeding for me.

Sunday evening I can make it, however. About 21:00 I set off for the centre hoping for another display like on Thursday. I take the back route down to the hide and put the nuts and raisins out. I settle into the hide at 21:30. Sat there quietly on my own, I close my eyes a couple of times, just resting the eyes. I open them on one of these occasions and a single badger is approaching down the main path. I can see it eating nuts as it works closer. It's there for a minute, or so, then turns and leaves the area. I wonder why it was spooked, but I'm not sure. I wait five minutes and a single bader re-approaches from the main path, probably the same animal. It works it's way a bit closer and I reach up to scratch my nose. The animal is gone in a second. I think it may have seen my hand movement as I've noticed that we have quite low cloud and with the city lights reflecting off this, it's lighter out there than it should be. This animal originally appeared at 21:41; the earliest I've seen the badgers. However, it's now 22:20 and still no sign of further activity.

A few minutes later I see a dark shape on the path to the left of the hide. It works its way towards the hide but before it gets fully into the feeding area, it turns tail and disappears. This isn't looking so good. A few minutes later it re-appears and I can hear other animals moving around in the dry ditch at the end of the path. No other animals appear, though. I wait and we eventually lose the badger, again, before it gets into the feeding area fully. And that appears to be that! I wait a few minutes, but nothing else happens. I walk back up to the farm uneventfully.

I speak with Vince about putting a roof on the hide to reduce the light levels inside and also to put some hatches in for easier access. This will take time, though, and we'll have to continue with what we have for a while longer.