Our ecologist Amy Richards reports……
The Ecology Consultancy’s Sussex office has been busy making good use of their new wildlife trail cameras which are motion activated and have been used at a number of sites in Sussex to monitor badger activity. These have also been used at sites to confirm whether badgers are present, or where a potential badger sett has been discovered that may or may not be in use.
The cameras have captured some really interesting footage of badgers, particularly at one of the sites where we set them up in woodland in East Sussex. Badgers were filmed dragging their bedding out of their sett to replace it with fresh material. It is thought that badgers do this to keep fleas under control in their nest chambers. The camera also caught videos of badgers playing and foraging for food.
A variety of other wildlife was also captured in the woodland including robins, foxes, pheasants, wood mice, a song thrush, blackbirds, rabbits and magpies. A pet cat was also filmed, presumably out hunting!
At a site in Brighton and Hove, where the cameras were used to determine whether badgers were active on a site proposed for development, badgers were filmed sharing their sett with a fox and her cub, both captured leaving the sett entrance on the same evening.
