I WAS doing one of my regular rounds of local badger setts last week and at some there have been signs that preparations are being made for the birth of cubs.

Badgers normally give birth in February and at one sett there was much evidence of recent digging activity. In effect, the sett had just been spring cleaned in anticipation of the arrival of the next generation.

I was also intrigued to find clay balls outside this sett, which I had never encountered before. Halfway in size between a golf and a tennis ball, they are most likely created during digging when the animal tries to clean soil stuck to its claws, the rolling action of the paws creating these earth balls.

At another sett, this one a satellite or outlier that is only used occasionally, there was a recently used latrine nearby. Badgers are fastidious animals and dig little pits to deposit their droppings in.

These communal latrines are shallow pits, generally dug in soft earth. Once a pit becomes full of dung, it is left uncovered and a new one is dug nearby. Often you can find several pits together, which gives the ground a distinctive pock marked effect. As well as providing sound hygiene practice, some latrines occur a considerable distance from the main sett and are used as territorial markers.

Badgers are tidy housekeepers in other ways too and will regularly change their bedding.

After removing old bedding, a badger will gather together a fresh bundle of grass, leaves and bracken, and then shuffle backwards down into the sett with the new material held firmly between the forelegs and chin. In spring, bluebell leaves are much favoured for bedding.

Ernest Neal and Chris Cheeseman in their classic book ‘Badgers’ revealed that badgers occasionally ‘air’ their bedding.

Apparently this occurs most often on dry sunny mornings in winter. Great quantities of bedding – usually hay – are dragged out and fluffed up into loose piles scattered around the entrance holes. After a few hours in the sun the badgers drag it back in again.