30 Nights Wild, night 19

It was yet another very warm night, but I decided to sit on the ground anyway. This was a mistake, as the mosquitos were relentless. I had a very long wait for a badger to appear, but finally Nicola emerged just after 9:30. The other cub Nigel and top boar Jeremy came out just before 10. Jeremy was not too happy about having me on the ground, but he settled down after a while.

Getting closer

I'd scattered peanuts over quite a wide area and a few of them were right at my feet. Before long, I had two badger cubs at my feet, snuffling about in the leaf litter, hoovering up peanuts. I slowly put my hand down to the floor and briefly felt the nose of a badger cub sniffing it. Jeremy moved ever closer too. He is a powerful boar and could take my leg off if he wanted to. They must have seen and smelt me, but were unconcerned until they saw me move. Then there was a stampede back to the sett. Within a minute they emerged again and continued feeding as though nothing had happened. When the peanuts were gone, the badgers wandered off into the woods to find something else. Before leaving, I checked the area with a bat detector. There was surprisingly little activity, but I did briefly pick up a Common pipistrelle. There's no shortage of insect food for bats here.

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