Badgers large and small.

It is difficult to tell badgers apart. However, the long days and well-lit visits of early summer have given a change to get a better look at them. 

Here are two young adults. They often seem to visit together and the first one pictured has a distinctive nick out of his/or her (another tricky judgement) right ear.

His friend is very similar. Both (despite May's drought) seem to be well-fed and in good shape. 

Here is 'friend' badger - very similar but lacking the nick and the scar on the first badger's nose.

And a couple of days later - here are both feeding together. 

Here is another badger - distinctive because of his 'big' face. He seems to be older and has been foraging with another mature animal - both looking rather boney during the drought. (This photos was a few weeks back,)

Now, young badgers out in the countryside are even more difficult to get good pictures of. Not only are they nervous (which is a good thing) but they are low in the grass, nose down.... looking for food, and you are probably looking at them as dusk, a challenge to any photographer. 

So many images look like this:

But if you try hard (and are very lucky) you may get this:

The badger cubs (probably born in February) are smaller than the adults - I think they are a different shape too - less lithe and more pudgy - and, as clear in the images here, lighter grey and rather fluffy! 

Here are the cubs again - a few days on from my last set of images and they look more like badgers with each passing day (rather than big grey guinea pigs with black and white faces).

This is not a great photo but I have added it here because it shows three of the four pups foraging together.

And here is one drinking from the bowl of water I provided. (The drought has now ended with bursts of heavy rain, which will have opened up the soil for them again to find their usual diet which is mainly earth worms.)

Finally, this photo shows that they are foraging with a young adult.... is this mum?

Badgerlands at twilight.

And finally here is a young lady badger foraging out in the countryside near where the cubs live. I wonder if this is their mum.