Evening Wildlife Watching Hide Update September 2025
- Harris Brooker
- Sep 29
- 2 min read
Updated: Nov 21
Autumn is officially here and the nights are getting darker earlier. The nights are also getting colder, as evidenced by the need to have the heaters on in the hide. There have been Badgers, Pine Martens, Wood Mice, Bank Voles and even Pygmy Shrews have been seen at the hide for the first time. Hopefully the sightings will continue as autumn progresses.
Badgers
There are now seven Badgers in this particular family and they have been coming every night this month. One night even before putting food out at the hide some Badgers appeared, perhaps wondering where the food was. They went away when they realised it wasn’t out yet. Then I laid out the bait, but because I felt I hadn’t laid out enough peanuts I went inside to get some more and two Badgers appeared thinking everything was ready when it wasn’t. My response to them when I saw that was, “I’m not finished yet”. They ran off but then after I’d gone back inside for good, they came out and fed and were both males. As the evening went on, we saw five different individuals, at one point we saw two of them snarl and bite each other. The guests, who were both German, referred to it as ‘streiten’ which means ‘to have an argument’, which accurately described what these two were having. It was a very successful evening in terms of Badger viewing.
Pine Martens
There are still Pine Martens visiting the hide, mainly the resident male and female, but one night we had two new ones that I had never seen before. Judging from their size and bib markings, they looked to be kits from the resident female and both seemed to be females. The first one we saw had a single spot on the bib and then the second one had its mother’s brown semi collar with a single spot on the bib. The last time this had happened was last year, which introduced me to the male we now have and the female that has since moved on. I’ve determined that Pine Marten kits seem to genetically inherit their bib markings and, in this case, it was no different. What was a surprise, though, was to see that they had inherited their grandmother’s single spot via their father.
Other Wildlife
The Scottish Wildcat is still around and there have been Tawny Owls and Barn Owls hooting. There are Wood Mice running around looking to grab peanuts with Bank Voles being seen as well. One surprising mammal we had on a few nights this month were Pygmy Shrews. They are one of the smallest mammals in the UK and were no bigger than the leaves on the ground. They were grey furred and had short protruding noses and were a very welcome addition to our hide’s mammal list.
If you would like a chance to see our nocturnal visitors go to: http://bit.ly/sw_EWW to book your place.
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