Badgers

[SteveSxx]

My wife woke me up at Midnight last night telling me that there was a large dog in our front garden - and on looking out of the window - I saw a LARGE badger.
We live in an urban area - a good mile away from open countryside, which makes me wonder - Do badgers only live in sets or do they live elsewhere out of breeding season ?
Or did this animal come in from a field ?

[RATTER15]

Badgers don't usually stray very far from their set, I imagine this one wandered a bit further tempted by the smell of food or maybe just inquisitive.

[SteveSxx]

More to the point
Badger Burgers - hmmm ??

[RATTER15]

Badger burgers maybe? especially after they been eating blackberries and raided a few bees nests, I expect the meat is very hard going though. Apparently to cook a badger joint on should put an old axe head in a large saucepan with your badger joint, boil until axe head becomes tender, your badger is now ready to eat.

Enjoy

[campbellking]

Saw a badger run across the road for the first time in my 40 years in Bedford last week.
Can only think they've heard of the plan to eliminate them for 'spreading bovine T.B.'.
Save the badgers now!

[WendyS]

Your badger may have been wandering further from home than usual in search of food. Worms are once of their main diet sources and the drought has meant that these are much deepr in the soil than usual, so your badger could be starving and and thus having to search much further afield for something to eat.
If you want to encourage it back you could try putting out some meat based tinned cat food, although there's no guarantee that some local cat might not get to it first.
A couple of years ago in the drought we had the magic experience of a couple of albino badgers pay us noctural visits for several nights, but haven't seen them since, possibly because all our neighbours have blocked up the holes in their fences which they broke down to reach as far as our garden.
Your badger will probably have come from a set where the countryside was more open which suggests it was probably desperate for food as I'm nos sure that they wander too far from home if food is normally in plentiful supply.