A wildlife lover was surprised when her camera footage filmed the “extremely rare” sight of a badger's defence mechanism: puffing up like a balloon in response to being startled.
Badger Trust supporter Angie Davidson from Bramblewood House UK Wildlife has been watching the night-time antics of her local wildlife via hidden cameras for around 12 years. “I’m always excited to look at the footage as I never know what the cameras will have caught,” she says.
But just when Davidson thinks she’s seen it all, something surprises her. This was the case when her video surveillance caught the moment a family of badgers, including a young cub, were surprised by the arrival of a fox as they were having a snack.
Although these creatures usually live side by side without issue, one of the badgers doesn’t appreciate their surprise guest and chases the fox away.
“The badger and the fox both make a growling noise which startles little cub Squeak who isn't sure what's going on and puffs up like a balloon,” says Davidson in the caption of the video, which share shared on YouTube in the summer of 2025. “It's kind of funny to watch Squeak bounce off like a beachball.”
Seeing a badger puff up like this is “an extremely rare occurrence,” she says. In more than a decade of filming her local wildlife, she has only ever seen it twice.
This was when a regular visitor – a fox known as Carrie – picked on the wrong badger.
Carrie “was a bit of a character,” says Davidson. “I'd seen on previous videos that she liked to torment the badgers by nipping at their tails, she used to do it over and over until they chased her, so it appeared to be a game.”
But in the footage shared on Instagram, one badger didn’t find this game quite so funny. “This time, she picked on a badger cub who was obviously not used to this behaviour and puffed up like a ball making a growling noise,” says Davidson. In the footage, the badger seems to inflate like a balloon.
At the time, Davidson had never seen anything like this before and couldn’t find any similar videos online. She adds: “I had to assume that it was a defence mechanism to make itself look bigger and more scary to a fox.”
