Badgers are one of the easiest mammals to watch – their eyesight is poor and if you are downwind, still and silent, it is easy to get close to them. Position yourself near an active sett entrance with a solid object behind you, so you are not silhouetted, or watch them feeding in your garden.
An urban badger in London. © Damian Kuzdak/Getty
- Males can generally be distinguished from females by their broader, more domed heads, fuller cheeks and thicker necks.
- Tails are a less reliable guide – males typically have thinner, whiter tails; females shorter, broader ones.
- Albino badgers are rare, but erythristic badgers (in which the black is replaced by reddish pigment) are more common.
- Individual badgers are easily recognised by the width and shape of their facial stripes, scars from fights and how much of their ears are left – the conspicuous white tufts are often lost in skirmishes.
- Use sketches to compile id guides of your local badgers and keep notes on their individual behaviour.
European Badger on an evening stroll. © Kristian Bell/Getty
Badger social structure
- Badgers live in complex social groups, which average about five adults. There is usually a slight preponderance of females because of the higher mortality of males in fights and on roads.
- Only some females breed. Those that do not are generally smaller and more likely to carry scars on their rumps from fights.
- Cubs of subordinate sows may be killed soon after birth by dominant sows and left outside the sett.
- During fights badgers often bite each other’s rumps, tearing off chunks of skin and flesh. Males fight in spring and late summer, when they are mating; females throughout the year.
Badger cubs foraging at dusk. © James Warwick/Getty
- Juveniles often play around the sett – particularly leap-frog and king-of-the-castle.
- There is frequent social grooming, for which badgers use their incisors. They also engage in scent-marking, particularly ‘bum-pressing’, where one badger presses the scent gland under its tail onto another badger, so that the group shares a common odour.
- In spring and summer, badgers dig out their setts. Setts can be used by many generations of badgers, and why they are extended is not clear – it may be that with more nest chambers, parasites build up less.
- Bedding collection is common, especially in spring and to a lesser extent after harvest time, when there is straw and hay debris in the fields.
European badger in woodland. © Damian Kuzdak/Getty
Badger mating and breeding
- Mating occurs mainly in early spring and late summer, often close to setts or in sett entrances.
- Delayed implantation occurs – blastocysts (very early embryos) implant in late December or early January, and the peak birthing period is early February. The typical litter size is 2 or 3.
- Newborn cubs emerge after 8 to 10 weeks, usually in late April or early May, and have silky, grey fur. Their behaviour is cautious until late May.