That is the unimaginable story of how I filmed a younger household of badgers of their secret underground world.
Badgers are elusive
Badgers stay in deep burrows, generally known as setts, and solely come out to forage at night time. Their transient daylight forays make it troublesome to get an intensive understanding of their characters and as a wildlife artist I’ve at all times needed to study extra. So I constructed an underground badger sett and put in cameras into secret chambers inside it. Then the day got here once I realized of three younger cubs that had been discovered wandering about on their very own alongside a roadside, having clearly misplaced their mom.
Badger rehabilitation
With the assistance of a wildlife rehabilitation centre, I positioned the cubs into my synthetic sett till they have been able to be launched into the wild. I let the cameras roll as they obtained to know their new residence and the ensuing footage revealed a magical, secret world. I realized a lot about badger behaviour, particularly about how playful these creatures are and I noticed issues I had by no means seen earlier than. Easy issues, like yawning, have been all new to me! Watch the movie to see a badger yawn – in case you too have by no means seen one – and comply with their story from the day they arrived till the day got here to launch them into the wild. Till this level they’d not seen or felt grass and it’s so particular to see them take their first steps outdoors.
