The wood also contains a number of outlying setts of various sizes, with all the setts comprising a number of underground tunnels and chambers, possibly as deep as 4 metres below the ground. The tunnels often extend over a large area, each having several different access holes so that the badgers can easily escape back below ground if they feel scared or threatened. As they are best suited to living underground, badgers eyes are quite small and their eyesight poor, sensing shapes and movement rather than detail. However, they make up for this with very good hearing and a very strong sense of smell, which is up to 800 times better than ours.

          

A fully grown badger is about the size of a small dog and measures 750 mm from head to tail - with a 150 mm tail. They weigh about 10 to 12 kg with very long, strong, claws which they use to dig out the earth to make their underground tunnels. Badgers like to keep their setts clean, and outside each entrance you will often find a large pile of earth. This pile will include old or dried plant material, which is old bedding that they have pulled out and discarded. Badgers collect new bedding by rolling it into a bundle and then dragging it backwards into their sett.

         

 Whilst they are technically carnivores, badgers do not hunt and chase prey in the way some other animals such as the fox may do. Instead they are better referred to as opportunistic foragers and will supplement their favoured diet of worms and grubs with windfall apples and berries, beetles, voles, mice, frogs, snails, wasps, acorns and bulbs. Indeed, they will happily consume anything edible which they come across during a night’s foraging.

          

As they are highly social animals, badgers spend long periods grooming each other when they are above ground which helps to cement bonds within the clan. They are mustelids, related to stoats, weasels and otters, and as such have a scent glad under their tail which they use to mark each other. Each clan has its own scent, making it easy for the badgers to identify one of their group in the darkness of the sett.

          

There is no breeding season for badgers as such and whilst most mating behaviour does occur in the Spring, it also occurs throughout the year. There is evidence to suggest that it may only be the dominant female within a clan who usually has cubs and she will often mate with several male badgers throughout the year. However, badgers exhibit what is known as “delayed implantation” and any fertilised eggs all develop together around December each year, with most cubs being born in February. Each litter usually consists of 2 or 3 cubs, although litter sizes of five or more are not unknown, and due to the delayed implantation it is likely that each cub will have a different father. Born with their eyes closed, newborn cubs are very dependent on their mothers but begin to explore the sett tunnels once they are about 6 weeks old. They start coming up to the entrances when they are about 8 weeks old and usually begin to explore the wider area from around 10 weeks of age. They generally stay close to their mother for several weeks after this stage however and will not be fully weaned until some time after they have reached 12 weeks.