In the video clip from the evening of August 16th firstly an adult badger is visible and then suddenly, running with quick steps, clearly slimmer creatures – the cubs of this year. How long we have waited for this sight in the badger camera!
Video captured by Fleur.in the badger camera forum.

Posted by the Animal of the Year team, 19.08.2016

In the second video clip from the same evening more can be seen of the cubs.
Video clip sent by  Urmas Lett.

Some days ago we could see badger cubs in the RMK badger camera view for the first time in the three-year history of the camera. True, the two cubs have become juveniles and no longer look like little silky fur balls at play even from afar; at a superficial glance they could even be thought to be adults.
The familiar and widespread idea of days with badger cubs romping in front of a sunny springtime burrow entrance seems to be a quite rare sight rather than the rule. At least in western Estonia it seems so. Where were they then?
According to information from English badger researchers badger cubs there come out from the burrow at 8-9 weeks and are active close to the sett only for a very short time. Then they leave the sett together with the female and have no bonds to the burrows until autumn. The female and the cubs may sleep in quite casual places, wherever the stamina of the cubs runs out. In the islands they can wander around and forage in an area of up to 300 hectares depending on how rich the dinner table is and how free from stresses the area is. Then the cubs on their own, or with the female, may stray into very strange places where badgers usually are not encountered. From the Saaremaa badger camera and the mainland trail cameras the badgers disappeared suddenly on the last days of May or first days of June, probably just as  the cubs were a couple of months old and slipped away behind the female. Only rarely, maybe once a week or week and a half, a solitary creature, probably the male, was caught in camera view, coming to check the home. So they too were roving across wide areas.

Now, from mid-August, there is again more bustle in the badger camera. It is likely that the longer trips of the inhabitants are done with and they keep closer to the home sett where they will have their winter  sleep together with the cubs.
Let us keep an eye on the badger camera! ‘

Tiit Hunt