Wildlife, living next to nature

[Carruthers]

Originally Posted by Diaphone Jim

As for Carruthers' neat badger pics, Wiki has this:
"They consume them [rabbits] by turning them inside out and eating the meat, leaving the inverted skin uneaten.[64] Hedgehogs are eaten in a similar manner.[63] In areas where badgers are common, hedgehogs are scarce."

I feel that it is important to put the above in context...

European badgers are among the least carnivorous members of the Carnivora;[60] they are highly adaptable and opportunistic omnivores, whose diet encompasses a wide range of animals and plants.
Earthworms are their most important food source, followed by large insects, carrion, cereals, fruit and small mammals including rabbits, mice, shrews, moles and hedgehogs.
Insect prey includes chafers, dung and ground beetles, caterpillars, leatherjackets, and the nests of wasps and bumblebees.
They are able to destroy wasp nests, consuming the occupants, combs, and envelope, such as that of Vespula rufa nests, since thick skin and body hair protect the badgers from stings.[61]
Cereal food includes wheat, oats, maize and occasionally barley. Fruits include windfall apples, pears, plums, blackberries, bilberries, raspberries, strawberries, acorns, beechmast, pignuts and wild arum corms.

Coincidentally, the wholesale ripping up of local lawns in the autumn by Badgers searching for leatherjackets has ceased in recent years since I started leaving peanuts out for them.

As for the part that cereals play in their diet, a few years ago over twenty Badgers were observed, by the local farm manager, feeding on spilled wheat one evening during harvest.

Link

[Carruthers]

I don't know how many fox families we have hereabouts, but my neighbour saw a vixen and two well grown cubs sunning themselves on her back lawn a few days ago.

We've had cubs of various sizes (different families?) visiting for the last three or four weeks and last night my camera caught the attention of this little chap.