Rare video of Inverness badgers sees their late night munching go viral

Nocturnal animals by their nature are rarely spotted and especially the badger, with many sadly found by busy highways. However a wildlife photographer near Inverness has managed to capture the mammals having a late night munch on his lawn.

Andy Howard captures wildlife both in Scotland and also Canada (notably bears) focussing mainly on the likes of squirrels, ospreys, mountain hares, and of course his near neighbours.

Andy said; "We live in a very privellidged position along the A96 corridor and virtually every piece of woodland east of Inverness has badgers in it"

"We have about five or six setts within about a mile of our house, with the nearest being about 50 meters away, and the biggest maybe about 200 metres away"

"We believe this small clan of up to four are the ones in the closest sett, they always seem to arrive in the garden just after dusk - you can set your watch by them!"

Andy picked up on the badgers after seeing evidence of their work one morning, with some holes in the garden. Since then he's started putting out food for them, such as peanuts and apples.

Also following the recent death of his terriers, the badgers appear more receptive to safely emerge into the garden.

However, some people might not share the same views and opinions of badgers, with concerns for bovine tuberculosis.

"It's obviously a concern for anyone who loves badgers", said Andy, "there's mass culling in England, which personally I feel is terrible"

"We should be nurturing the the natural world. Up here we're lucky that we've got lots of badgers and low instances of TB. I live on a farm with beef cattle and we've no instances of it here"

"We've perhaps not the intensity of farming which they have in the south which is where - in my opinion - with the moving of cattle that those higher number of cases come from"

Andy is delighted with the response to his video, which is one of the many encounters with wildlife that might otherwise pass us by.

"To use a Go-Pro camera - which is only about £300 - it just captures the essence and character of an animal, and they're relatively affordable giving an amazing perspective, but you've got to know how to position them"

"That said, with the badgers in the garden it's relatively easy"

Andy did receive a warning on Twitter from someone else on the pitfalls of using the Go-Pros.

"Somebody did warn me that they'd lost a camera to a badger who had just decided to carry it off with them"

"So sadly there's some amazing footage somewhere - the only problem is that it's deep down a sett where the badger's carried it off into their home!"

You can find out more about Andy's work here

• wildlife
• badgers
• a96
• inverness
• Highland
• Nature