The Windermere Lodges Blog » Badgers

We love badgers but…

admin — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 15:31:35 +0000

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Much as I enjoy watching badgers from the decking at night I’m not quite so keen on the damage they can do to my decking when they want something that’s on it!

I think some recent guests at Kingfisher Lodge must have left some dog food out, or maybe put a rubbish sack by the back door waiting to take it out in the morning. Whatever it was it must have smelled good to the badger that did this in an effort to get at it!!

New, improved badgers at Limefitt Park

admin — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 16:54:05 +0000

We invested £8.99 in a work light from Homebase last week. We clipped it to the rail on the decking, fired it up and spread out the peanut butter sandwiches.

The Badger Light

It only took a few minutes before we saw our first badgers and we were able to see them really clearly.

Badgers by light

It’s surprising how they don’t really seem to be bothered by the light. I suspect they don’t see very well anyway.

Whatever the reason it’s been a great investment as it’s much more fun being able to see them as though it’s daylight

More badgers – and this time they move!

admin — Sat, 30 May 2009 08:25:28 +0000

Last night, inspired by Spring Watch, we decided to set up our own hide with state of the art lighting and video recording equipment.

So we opened the bedroom window and stuck our lounge floor lamp by it (no infra red heat seeking gear here I’m afraid), angled the reading light part out of the window, put Tom’s Flip video camera on a tripod, threw out some peanut butter sandwiches and waited. It didn’t take too long before a female arrived. From the state of her teats which were hanging down below her belly we guessed she must be nursing a young family.

A female badger near our lodge at Limefitt Park

And here’s the video

A beautiful badger

admin — Fri, 29 May 2009 11:40:34 +0000

This adult badger was only 2 feet from our bedroom window last night!

Badger by our window

We saved our peelings and then made a peanut butter sandwich – yes we spoil them don’t we!

As usual this fellow was to intersted by the food to be worried by the flash. Believ it or not this picture was taken in the pitch darkeness of a Lake District night!

Here’s looking at you deer!

admin — Sun, 17 May 2009 09:29:43 +0000

Last night we put some crunch nut shreddies out on the fell side for the badgers and sat down to wait. Sure enough after 10 minutes we were visited by 2 of our nocturnal friends. We were stood by the window and they came to within 2 feet of us, seemingly totally unfazed by our presence. Magical!

This morning we were visited by a lone deer. I just managed to grab this picture before it noticed Suki and bolted.

A deer at Limefitt Park

A Troutbeck walk

admin — Sun, 17 May 2009 09:08:25 +0000

Dodging the April showers (Yes, I know it’s May, but that’s what the weather feels like just now) we headed out for a quick circuit of Troutbeck. By the beck we saw a sweep of wild garlic (ransoms) and the scent was overpowering. These are also called bear garlic, but we don’t get many bears round these parts.

Wild garlic (ransoms) next to Troutbeck

A little further on we saw a bank full of purple vetch (which Linda and I agree is the best plant name ever)

Purple Vetch

We walked up through the village ,taking care not to look too hard at the beautiful gardens as it’s the Troutbeck garden Trail next Bank Holiday Monday. We went on down past the sadly boarded up Mortal Man (hopefully soon to be resurrected) and down past the badger holes to the church. As we walked along the dry stone wall we heard what sounded like crickets chirping or birds cheeping s0 we stopped

A wall full of bluetits!

After half a minute out popped an adult blue tit and a fledgling!

Every walk round here brings something different!

New luxury pine lodge now occupied at Limefitt Park

admin — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 09:01:07 +0000

Last night we watched the badgers finishing of the remains of our pasta (very sophisticated badgers around these parts)

This morning we watched the new occupants taking possession of the bird house outside our bedroom window at the fellside lodge.

There seemed to be two pairs of tits interested – a pair of blue tits and a pair of coal tits. Interestingly it seems that the smaller birds have won or maybe the coal tits were looking for a more spacious place.

Blue tit at our Limefitt Park nesting box

Easter in the Lake District

admin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:57:30 +0000

Well I’ve just returned from a glorious week at Limefitt Park. Fantastic April weather!

The scenery is magical when the sun shines

Dubbs Reservoir Walk near Limefitt Park

This glade is on the Dubbs Reservoir circular walk that can be done straight from your lodge door.

Another walk we did was on Easter Monday. This spot only a few hundred yards from the lodges is perfect for a picnic, but there wasn’t another human in sight!

Two Bridges Picnic Spot near Limefitt

This stone must have taken ages to balance like this!!

A well balanced stone!

All week we were seeing evidence of Spring with lambs on the fells and flowers in the dells! Lovely!

Lambs on the fellsides

Flowers in a dell

One slightly unusual sight was these brown cows – you don’t see many of these up on the fellsides

How now Brown Cow?

A great week – April has been glorious in the Lakes for the last 3 years! To top it off we saw 3 badgers eating the food we put out for them last night – a rare sight indeed!

Limefitt Park Gets David Bellamy 5 Year Award for Conservation

admin — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 15:17:51 +0000

This year Limefitt Park was awarded the David Bellamy Gold Award for the fifth year running. One of the great things about the park is the way in which large areas are set aside for wildlife, with the result that we’ve seen red squirrels, badgers, deer and the occasional sheep on the park. Getting this award for 5 years on the trot is a significant achievement and one which Mark Thomas, the park manager, is understandably proud of.

The Thomas family and the David Bellamy Award for Limefitt

This photo is of Mark and his family receiving the David Bellamy 5 Year Award for achieving the Gold Standard for “Enduring Commitment to Conservation”

A badger ate my wedding cake!

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 09:26:21 +0000

It’s now nearly 15 years since Linda & I were married. We had a particularly lovely wedding cake. A rich fruit number with fantastical icing. Since that was before the days of digital photography I don’t have a picture here for you I’m afraid. Anyway, the cake was so lovely that we couldn’t bear to part with the layer that remained, so it got put away in the freezer, taking up nearly a whole storage box to itself. Apparently the custom is to bring it out a year or so later for the subsequent Christening.

Well Thomas arrived, but as I tick the atheist box and Linda tends to go for the “Not Sure” option, the Christening never happened and the cake languished, lonely but not unloved, for a further decade in the freezer.

Anyway, this year we decided to use it as our Christmas cake, but over the years it had dried out and it wasn’t really all that nice any more. Rather than chucking it we decided to recycle it via the local wildlife, so last night I threw some chunks outside our bedroom window.

I didn’t sleep particularly well, and I had the curtains open so I could look outside at the fell side. There was very little moonlight, but there was a heavy frost which painted the grass a spangly white and reflected all the available light, so visibility was actually very good. At about 3 a.m. I saw a movement and realised that we had a badger as our final wedding guest. He (or was it she?) circled the cake and began to nibble at it. The icing was obviously causing it a problem, but one which it was happy to deal with, and we may be responsible for the first case of badger sugar induced tooth decay in the Lake District.

I got out of bed, stark-naked and edged to the window with my camera. I squatted down and took a flash picture which illuminated the window pane and resulted in a picture of what was reflected at the level of the camera as I squatted. I won’t post that here in the interests of decency.

My new friend the badger remained unfazed. I did really want to get a picture so I opened the window. It grated and squeaked but the badger was obviously a great fan of cake and sat there blinking at me. I took a flash picture, and still it stayed nibbling at the cake. All in all it must have been there for about 10 minutes no more than 6 feet from my window.

Badger and Wedding cake at Limefitt Park

Of course now I feel like Bill Oddie ( a slightly taller version maybe). I was so excited it took me ages to finally drop off. You can see the remains of the cake on the left of the picture – the icing has already gone!