Bees, Bees and More Bees

Yesterday afternoon, I heard Jackie shout out into the garden from our bedroom window “Allan! Bees! Lots of bees!” I stopped my weeding of the flower border and raced inside up the stairs to be greeted with the hysterical pleas of “Allan get them out!” There certainly were a great many – all of whom should have been outside enjoying the sun. I suppose there were around a hundred and fifty or so making quite a commotion packing in against the inside of the window. “Right let’s open all the windows and get them out,” I said calmly, trying to set an example for my wife,
“You open all the windows!” demanded Jackie, “I’ve nearly been stung twice!” After a couple of minutes of gentle persuasion with my faithful badminton racquet, they were all out. “That’s a job well done,” Jackie applauded, “I’m going to try a little sun bathing as the weather is so glorious!” Off she went to take up her favourite sun bathing spot up under a big old ash tree towards the top of the garden; I sat nearer the house re-tying some fishing flies that needed repair.

After what seemed the shortest of time one started to hear a buzzing sound, starting to get louder and louder, eventually resembling the noise of a small Hercules aircraft. I then looked up to the end gable of the house and there was black cloud of bees! They were so striking in number, a truly magnificent swarm. This happens when the Queen bee gets hot and uncomfortable and decides she wants a change - that change being starting a new home in our attic. After a few minutes I went and found my camera and took a few photos and short film; the afternoon had turned out to be extremely exciting. Once anyone witnesses a bee swarm on a gloriously sunny afternoon, it will stay with them forever as a scene of nature at her very best. The good news is that that’s the largest wild bee swarm I’ve seen in a very long time. To see bees swarm used to be a common enough sight but, with dwindling bee numbers, it’s now much rarer so I was over the moon with this fine sight. After a short while of the bees to-ing and fro-ing, the swarm subsided as they settled in their new home. Jackie walked down from the garden looking extremely relaxed but quite dazed in the sunshine. “Everything alright?” she quizzed.
“You’ve missed an incredible bee swarm!” I explained.
“Great! Where did they go?” she asked.
“Up into the attic!” was my reply. I’ll never figure out why, but she didn’t look quite so relaxed upon hearing this news. Did I mention that our bedroom is in the attic? 

A swarm of this size would produce approx. 60lbs of honey a year.

They came in through the round window!

Badgers I've Got You Covered.

Good day. I have got to grips with my ‘Badger Beacon’ program.  It works exceptionally well even in day light. When tested it could be clearly seen from a quarter of a mile away.

Now that Owen Patterson has given the green light to another killing spree, I thought I would add a little red light of my own so I have brought up an old incinerator along with a good big pile of dry timber.  When torched this contraption will glow bright red if and when intruders get too near the sett.  Of course, we are talking of intruders with almost super human abilities, they can wipe out seventy percent of Gloucestershire’s badger population carrying TB and leave thirty percent TB free.  Miraculous by anyone’s definition because to mere mortals like myself, a badger with TB looks just the same as a badger that is not carrying the disease.  But as I said before, we are dealing with almost supernatural beings whose understanding of the disease in badgers is far greater than my own, so all we can do is keep plugging away and save as many as we can until such times as this government and any successive governments see the futileness of such a totally nonsensical, hideous and downright wrong campaign.  A campaign put against one of nature’s most iconic animals.  The attack against the badger is going to be far more brutal and catastrophic to Britain’s nature than most people realise.  Notwithstanding, this barbaric onslaught will take place under a veil of mismanaged evidence, unscientifically proven experiments of yesteryear and before.  We all know Bovine TB in cattle can be contracted from the badger and deer, but let’s be very clear and be in no doubt, by killing these totally ‘live and let live’ carefree animals, Bovine TB will be just as prevalent in our herds after the cull as it was before.  Just look at the results from Southern Ireland’s culling program.

 Anyway, onwards and upwards.  Let’s just hope the closest badger sett to wherever you live is kept safe.

Weasels and Wigwams

        “Allan, Mrs Dixon rang, she’s got problems in her roof space.”  That was the message as I came in through the back door.

“Ok, I will ring her back.” I picked up the phone and gave her a ring. “Mrs Dixon? Allan here, what’s the trouble?” Mrs Dixon started to go on and on about a terrible stink coming from her roof space or so she thought; “I’ll be there in about an hour” I replied. Over tea we discussed what it might be. Jackie thought of a scenario, Sophie and Sam put in their two penneth with their imaginations. I had thought they would come up with some good ideas for me but alas, it was not to be. Once tea was consumed it was outside to the Landrover and over to Mrs Dixon’s, a ten minute drive. On arrival I was met by a rather disgruntled Mr Dixon. “Hello,” I shouted, but he wanted no small talk.

 “My house stinks that much we can’t bear to be in it.” Mrs Dixon seconded every word.

 “What do you think it could be?”

“Well from here I’ve no idea,” looking at the house which was 30 yards from where I had parked.

“Have you had any trouble with your drains? I asked.

“No, none at all,” was the very stark reply. As we all walked up to the house through their cottage garden, which was awash with beautiful summer flowers, I could see there were a couple of beehives down by the vegetable patch. We got to the front door and, as I stepped forward, they stepped back. “Not a good sign,” I thought. I went into the hall and was hit by an awful stench. “Get upstairs!” they shouted, “it gets worse, once you get to the top of the stairs. It’s the door to the right to the attic.” The smell was horrendous. I got to the attic door and I couldn’t stand it any longer so I went back down, running out of the hall into the fresh air. “What is it? What is it?” They asked. 

“I don’t know, I haven’t been in there yet, I’ve got to get something to wrap around my face, and it’s this warm weather.” Mr and Mrs Dixon both said simultaneously, “We can’t sleep in there anymore, we can’t eat in the cottage, in fact we just can’t live in it anymore.” Starting to fear the worst I said, “Well there’s no room at my place.” 

“No, no!” said Mr Dixon, “we’re living there,” pointing down the garden, and there between an old pigsty and the beehives was a massive red and yellow wigwam.

 “You’re not serious? You can’t live in that!” I exclaimed in disbelief.

“We’ve had more nights in tents than you’ve had hot dinners,” they replied. “In places a damn side warmer than this, I can tell you.” I still thought it was insane that two 85 year olds should spend their nights out in a glorified tent. I went to the Landrover and got an old shirt and then went down to the veg garden and soaked it under the outside garden tap. “If you sort this out, there will be a pot or two of honey for you,” 

“Lovely lot this year,” said Mr Dixon and there did seem to be a lot of bees buzzing around. Tying the wet shirt around my face, I re-entered the house; up the first staircase and past the ancestral paintings on the walls. On opening the door to the second staircase up to the attic, I started to smell the stench through the wet shirt. I really didn’t like this much but it had to be done. Higher and higher I went. Once I got to the top I stood for a few seconds, getting my eyes adjusted to the dimness of the light. There was the odd chink of light coming in through the roof which, looking at it, wasn’t far off a re-roofing job. The smell was wafting the length and breadth of the attic. One had to be careful, it was only partly boarded over, and you would be through the ceiling if you weren’t vigilant. Their belongings were everywhere. An old Zulu shield caught my eye over the far end of the attic, underneath a beam of light coming through the roof; I inched my way towards it, got halfway across and then stopped as I spotted an old wicker small child’s chair; I sat in it and then just listened and watched, all the time honing in one’s senses to try and solve this stinking problem. As I sat there in the dim light, I heard a rustling. I sat dead still. It’s strange how one’s breathing always seems so annoyingly louder when trying to be deathly quiet. There was movement over by the shield. I heard a light squeaking and then, from between two teddy bears, I could just make out a weasel lugging across the floor a dead rat, almost as big as the weasel himself.  “Aha, I see,” I thought. Mystery solved.

Weasels will catch every day to feed their young and if you are unlucky enough to have a weasel in your attic, with a few leftover carcasses, after a very short time the smell becomes intolerable. From my view point from the wicker chair, I made out three young weasels doing quite nicely and I estimated, going by their size, they would be there for no longer than one more week and then they would up and leave, or we would have to move them on.  “Just listen to me!” I mused, “giving the OK to squatters’ rights! I’ll put it to Mr and Mrs Dixon as best I can.”  I gingerly inched back to the attic door, crept through it, shut it tightly behind me and went down the stairs out of the hall, into the garden and down to this hideous coloured wigwam. There was Mrs Dixon bent over a wood fire stirring a pot, what looked to be some kind of rabbit stew she had knocked up. From inside the tent I heard as I got nearer, “I’ll have two good sized dumplings dear.” Mrs Dixon turned towards me as I approached, “So what is it?”

“A family of weasels,” I replied.

“What can we do about them?” asked a very wide-eyed Mrs Dixon.

 “If you move them on the young ones will die as they are too small, but I bet you are not being troubled by rats with your chickens lately?”

“No, funny you should mention that, I haven’t seen a rat for weeks,” said Mr Dixon coming out of the wigwam.

“She is feeding them a rat as we speak. And, in about a week’s time, they’ll be ready to move out!” I said.

“This has been like a real adventure for us,” said Mrs Dixon smiling. “Now we know what it is the weasel can stay for one more week, we’re very happy down here beside the bees,” she laughed.

“How do you know it is a weasel and not a stoat?” asked Mr Dixon.

“Well this one is weasonably easy and the other is stoatly different. The best of the evening to you both,” I chuckled to myself softly as I closed the garden gate behind me, after waving goodbye to a very relieved-looking couple. I make myself laugh sometimes.

One of the countryside’s formidable hunters.  A truly beautiful animal.

Summer Solstice: Nature's Late Night Out

Just like the days at primary school, the excitement of a Friday afternoon building up steadily from 12 ‘o’ clock onward has never left me. I have got an old school report from the summer of 1972: 63 days absent. I remember each of these days vividly, between April 1^st and September 31^st: the trout fishing season. Mum would shout up the stairs to me and my four brothers and sister “Get up, breakfast, the bus will be here in a minute!” With that, I would grab the fishing rod and throw it out of the bedroom window, come down with the rest of the kin, have breakfast, straighten our ties, shine up our shoes and be off to catch the bus, or so Mum thought. The minute the back door closed I would say “See you!” to my kin, nip round to underneath the bedroom window and I was off fishing for the day. Absolute bliss; such happy days. When I had my own children, Sophie and Sam, I would race upstairs, get hold of the report and say “this is what happens when you don’t do homework, and you are not interested in school life,” if they were ever reluctant to do their studies - they had seen that report a thousand times. Although my mother and father took a very dim view of absenteeism, to me it didn’t really matter as out in the country in those days expectations for large families were low. You were living in a time when there was a job for all no matter what your academic ability. Some might say, ‘the good old days,’ but on with the night at hand.

Today at 3:40 in the afternoon, it was time for one last job. I drove up to the top of the belt of woodland which houses the badger sett and stopped the Landrover, before the dogs bounced out. I whistled them across to a buzzard on carrion rabbit. As the dogs honed in, the buzzard swept up into the air. “Never mind, you look fat enough to me,” I thought, “and I need that rabbit.” I walked back on the old fox run, round the top of the wood and there was the fox trap I had prepared a week earlier. I replaced the stilton cheese with the rabbit – cheese just didn't do it for him. I wired the rabbit into the corner of the trap to a spring-tine hinge, which was used to spring the gate onto the back of the fox, upon lifting the rabbit, if I was fortunate enough. “We will see what this brings,” I said to the dogs. Jobs completed: homeward bound.

Bobbling along the country roads back from work, dogs’ heads out of windows catching the breeze and the smells in this glorious sunshine, it felt really good to be finished for the week, with the expectations of the night’s fishing and solstice ahead of me. I parked the Landrover in the drive; the three of us left it as quick as a swallow leaving its nest. I fed the two dogs, “You’ll be staying here tonight as tonight is my night, you’ll just cramp my style.” I then started to prepare my own supper and, just as I was cutting a large lump of bread, Jackie came in. “Had a good day?” she asked.

“Brilliant,” I replied.

“Are you going fishing?”

“Yes,” I replied, “Have we got any cheese?” Jackie went to the fridge. “How much do you want?”

“A good old lump,” I replied.

“Keep an eye out for that old fox,” she said.

“I will, I haven’t seen it for a day or two so I don’t know whether its limp is better or worse.” Jackie rolled up the bread and cheese in a tea towel, I picked up the rod and tin of flies and I was ready to go. “You’ll be late tonight as it’s the solstice.” Jackie knew I’d be out this years’ solstice like I’ve been out every solstice since the day we got married. “See you later and don’t wake us up when you come in. Oh and by the way, a trout breakfast would be nice.”

                As I walked down the fields to the river the heat was balmy, sultry and beautiful, the leaves on the trees and the grass was that gorgeous lush green colour that you only get when you have had rain before sunshine. The Swallows were dipping quite low down grabbing the flies as I disturbed the grass; their flying magnificence was awe inspiring, the river at last. The fish were breaking the water on one of the main bends, a good place to start. On a night like this fly selection is key as there are so many natural flies and the rest of the mayflies competing with your own, so trying to make your fly more inviting than the real thing is an art. “A little bit more breeze would have been handy,” I thought, “to clear the water a tad.” After a couple of hours, I started to get peckish - I could resist the bread and cheese no longer. Sat there on the river bank with the bread and cheese, toasting the health of the trout with the quart of cider, I couldn't help but think back to that old school report. After all the ribbing I used to give Sophie and Sam, nights like tonight really bring home to me just how lucky and fortunate my life has been and I can honestly say hand on heart, I really hope Sophie and Sam’s lives are filled with the same day-to-day contentment and joy that mine has been blessed with. Nature’s symphony surrounded me with her sounds from the birds and the bees. It filled and satisfied you utterly and totally, it was all so pleasing to the ear. It was as beauty is to the eye, and the scent of the newly mown hay on the other side of the river was as good to the nose as any quality claret: this was England at its finest. This was nature’s 3D system: encapsulating the essence of surround sound in the most divine way imaginable. A 3D system that encouraged every sense and nurtured your very existence, handed down by the one above, who knows a thing or two about sound systems.

                I finished the supper for the time being, the bread and cheese that was left was wrapped up back in the tea towel and half the cider was kept back to go with it later on at the badger sett. I fished on up river for another hour or so and still caught nothing - I was starting to think that that trout breakfast of Jackie’s was looking more and more distant. The breeze was now beginning to stir and the night was getting on. The natural fly numbers were diminishing. “This could be a different ball game,” I thought, casting the fly out again and again. Bite! Oden the old Viking sea god had answered my prayers, he’d sent breeze on this solstice night. The trout fought hard. After five minutes I had my hands around him. A beautiful one and a half pound brown trout. Looking at the trout, I had a Sermon-on-the-Mount moment: I needed another, this one trout would not feed four. The same fly was cast again, 20 metres up water, almost as soon as the fly touched the water - bite! Oden had done it again. After another five minutes with this fighting trout, he was safely landed and he too was dispatched. “That’s enough,” I thought, “Jackie will do wonders with those.” It had been a great night’s fishing. I carry no watch but I estimated the time to be about twenty past eleven. The breeze had now turned stronger into a light wind.

                Badgers were my next port of call. I picked up what was left of the supper, the two trout and the rod and started my half hour walk up to the badgers. The birdsong had waned away steadily through the night. It had been peaceful and so reassuring to listen to the skylarks so high overhead, one of the first sounding birds in the morning and one of the last sounding birds at night. The Tawny Owl had now taken centre stage. As I walked back through the fields to the beech woodland, there were two Barn Owls hunting their patch and they seemed to follow me or I was following them, I’m not sure. On entering the beech wood, through the beech trees I threaded to the big boulders I had placed around the badger sett. I put down the rod and the two trout and went and sat on top one of the rocks with the remains of my supper. The badgers were nowhere to be seen, but they had seen me. This badger protection build had worked better than my wildest dreams. A jolly good job. They were completely hidden from all sides. They would leave and re-enter the sett completely undercover, among trees and boulders. It had worked very well.

                As I sat upon the rock, eating the last of my supper and drinking the last of the cider, the badgers started to appear one by one. Seven I watched to-ing and fro-ing, four cubs play fighting. “I’ve built them a Stonehenge,” I thought, as I looked at the rocks. I could pick them out distinctly, although it must have been near to midnight. I toasted them with the last of the cider. As we caught each other’s gaze they were totally unperturbed by my presence. This could have been something to do with the fact that I was three foot six in the air on top of a large rock. Just as I was about to bid them good night, there was a crash bang from the top of the woodland and the badgers scattered to ground in every direction. I jumped off the rock and ran up the slope to the boundary of the woodland and there, in an old sheep hurdle pen trap that I had rigged up Monday of this week, there he was, that limping fox. As he tried to grab the rabbit bait the gate had latched behind him. I had him. But now I had him, “I could’ve done without this tonight,” I thought. I’d left by the side of the hurdle trap some old rope and hessian sacking for handling. I made a noose one end of the rope and got him as gently as I could around the neck. I pulled the rope through the gap in the hurdle and tied it around a tree so that the fox’s head was against the hurdle. The owls continued to hoot and the bats were dancing above us. I got the other rope and as the fox thrashed around to free the rope from his neck, I tied the other rope up under his girth and around his hips and pulled that back through the hinged hurdle to a tree the other side, effectively stretching him and keeping him unable to turn his toothy jaw towards me. “I’ll have to be quick,” I thought. I then opened the gate of the pen and got the hessian sacking and wound it round his head and ears, the darkness almost by magic quietens them down. He went down on his side; the fight had drained from him. He lay quite peaceful. As I admired his rusty coat and lean frame, I hoped he realised that I was doing this for his own good and that I meant him no harm. The limp appeared to be his front left leg, so that’s the one I started with. Heavens, it was fishing line that had wrapped tightly around the bottom of his leg, just above his paw; the paw was badly swollen. I got my penknife out and as I tried to cut the line, I could feel him flinching and trying to pull away. It was very nasty but clean so he would be alright once I got the fishing line off. As I got the last of it off, he started to howl, almost like a baby. I was hurting him, I needed to be quick. At last, his leg was free from the line, “Mindless, inconsiderate, gormless fishermen,” I said to the fox. Now to set him free. I undid the rope from his hips and opened the hurdle at the back; I pushed an old shepherd’s crook down the side of his neck between his neck and the rope. I hooked the rope in the mouth of the crook and held onto it tight. I then released the rope from the tree and felt the release instantly. The fox still lay there. I then yanked on the crook to pull the rope from around his neck; it peeled back over his ears. The fox was now up, banging into the side of the hurdles as he couldn’t see through the hessian which was still around his ears and eyes. I quickly hooked the hessian with the crook and it fell down from around his face and, to my astonishment, he ran off with the rabbit in his mouth which was the bait that I had lured him in with. “Nothing is as cunning as a fox!” I thought. The time now was very late; I reckoned it was well past 1:00am. The sky was beautiful; the stars were out in abundance. I went back past the badgers, picking up the tea towel, cider vessel and rod, but no trout! I scoured the area but they had gone; I had caught a lucky woodland dweller a hell of a supper. “Never mind Jack, better luck tomorrow,” I thought. As I walked back to our house, the moths were dancing to light of the moon, as if it were a giant candle; “this was the bats’ feasting time’” I thought. The moon was almost full, the night was magical.

The moon of the Summer Solstice 2013. They say if you make a wish on the Solstice moon, it stands as good a chance as any in coming true.

The Day the Bees Moved In

Bees are in decline; they are just not as plentiful as they once were. Today was the first real hot humid day of the summer. This was bee swarming weather.  Bee swarms occur when the queen bee gets uncomfortable within her surroundings and decides to go off and make a new nest. Quite honestly this can be anywhere. 

My wife normally leaves a couple of bedroom windows open just to let the air circulate a little but, on this particular day, it was the queen and her bees doing the circulating. I arrived home from work and went upstairs as I normally do to have a wash and get changed into some lighter clothes, when I heard a faint buzzing sound.  I looked into the kids’ bedroom and there were a few bees in the half of the window that didn’t open, effectively trapping them in. Looking around the bedroom for some kind of tool to alleviate the situation, I espied a badminton racquet which I quickly grabbed and with which I lightly pushed them out, thinking that this was the end of the episode. However, when I carried on to my bedroom, I heard more buzzing, which seemed to be most horrendous. On opening the bedroom door, I couldn’t believe my eyes.  The window sill was about three inches thick with bees and there were quite a few buzzing around.  The noise within the bedroom was unsettling and I could see that the window was closed. How was I to get them out without disturbing them and being stung half to death? A full bee suit and smoke are things that I have not got readily to hand. “Badminton racquet,” I thought.  I went back to get it and returned to my buzzing bedroom. Badminton racquet in hand, looking towards the bedroom window, I was wondering how on earth I was going to open it. “Fishing rod,” I thought.  I went back downstairs to the dining room and picked the shorter of the two fly rods and raced back upstairs to the bee situation, which seemed to be quietening down. They were now starting to get too hot as the sun beamed through the glass - they all seemed to be looking far too comfortable. I put the rod to the catch of the window and, on the fourth attempt, the catch gave way and the window opened, I breathed a sigh of relief.  It was now time to move in with the badminton racquet.  I grabbed a pillow from the bed, removed it from its case and proceeded to pull it over my head and neck to protect myself. However, I then found I couldn’t see at all, so I discarded this and went in just with the racquet. I started to slide them slowly across the window sill to the open window.  A few agitated bees started to fly around the room with much more impetus to find the culprit who was pushing them along. Eventually, after two or three minutes, they were all pushed through the window and the window tightly closed after the last bee had passed through it. This was all done without a single sting. I was really quite chuffed.

Bee keepers aim to produce 60lbs of honey per hive per year, and this busy little bee in our garden is doing its best to keep the statistics on the right side of good.

Badger, the Real Daddy Cool

Another dawn, another day. Last night we had a lovely meal out at a local restaurant to celebrate my daughter passing her first year exams of her medical course and my son’s passing his first year of his college Land Management course, and notwithstanding the unmitigated success of the badger protection programme (Operation Mozart’s Magic Flute).  We raised our glasses and toasted each and every one of us. The night was amusing, witty and thoroughly enjoyable. 7:25am this morning I was awoken to the song of “Happy Father’s Day to you, Happy Father’s Day to you,” there they stood at the bed side, Jackie with the tray of tea, the two kids laden with presents.  We also do this ritual for Mother’s Day, ever since the kids were big enough to walk. Up onto the bed they all clambered, the bed seemed to have shrunk, probably down to the fact that Sophie was now nineteen and Sam was a six-foot seventeen year old.  ”Open your presents!” they yelled, their excitement equally as great as mine. The star present was a rather splendid camera and their faces lit up as they saw my surprise and gratitude. Cotswold wildlife, get ready to smile!

 As they left the room, breakfast bound, I reflected on the time past of my own mum and dad who sadly had died before Sophie and Sam were born. They were irreplaceable like all parents are to any child: all that advice freely given from the heart for the sole purpose of the child’s future happiness. You never realise what you’ve got until it’s gone. A huge loss also for Sophie and Sam, Grandchildren and Grandparents, a special kind of bond in any family was not to be in ours. 

Years ago, I made a little film following a family of badgers in their day to day existence. The accompanying tune to the piece of film was Bony M’s “Daddy Cool” - it makes me smile as much now as it did then. I thought this tune quite apt, and this post apt on this Father’s Day, because of me becoming so fond of who I called “Old Daddy Cool”: the dominant male of the sett who made it his sole duty to protect and do the best for his family. The film was a very rough-around-the-edges affair but it gave a very clear insight into badger behaviour. I had followed them over a period of about eighteen months or so, it was quite fascinating to see how they go about their daily business, a definite ‘live let live’ culture was the order of the day. The mother as well as father would reprimand the cubs and keep them in check when play got out of hand, all seemingly done for the sett’s best interest; no anti-social behaviour orders here. They looked after their own in a truly caring loving environment. Diet was mainly made up of large amounts of slugs, worms and seasonal berries, the odd snake or two would always be welcome if the chance were to arise. What I also saw was the potential for a national badger cull to cause havoc in this beautifully balanced environment. Whilst there is no doubt badgers can pass on bovine TB to cattle, wholesale slaughter is not the solution either (look back to my second post on this page “George Would Have Told Them to Keep Dodging the Lead”). My concern is, once a protected animal has that status removed it can so often open the flood gates to the camouflage  trouser, combat jacket brigade that can cause so much destruction and misery in our precious countryside.

All those years ago one bright August dawn, when I was taking the films, my opinion of culling badgers was set in stone forever.  I remember quite vividly my walk up to the sett that warm carefree morn.  The combine harvesters had finished cutting the wheat and a thick swath of straw lay on the ground awaiting the bailer. As I entered the spinney something was wrong.  No bird song!  As I got closer, no robin, “you always see the robin before you see my badgers,” I thought. Just then, I averted my gaze to beneath an elder tree, there lay a dead dog; it was a Staffordshire bull terrier, a badger baiting dog. As I looked further, there was another two. I turned to go across to the sett. I didn’t want to as I knew what carnage was about to greet me. Over on the old play mound there he lay, Old Daddy Cool, his family lay scattered around him, all of them displaying horrific open wounds, they had been ripped to pieces. Looking at the shocking devastation I could see that he’d fought like a lion to protect his family but the odds had been just too great.  I fear with the government’s badger cull policy and the protection being lifted from badgers in certain areas, the odds could easily become far too great for the badger again. We must all stand up against these abhorrent crimes. Things have moved on a little thank goodness, due to the work of Sir David Attenborough, Dr. Brian May and many other influential big hitters. The Lord Protector of our woodlands needs all the help he can get.

The Robin, the gardener's friend, will often be found where earth is disturbed; wild boar, pigs, badgers all provide the robin with a nice easy meal.

Badgers, See You at Chelsea

Today’s the day we put Operation Mozart’s Magic Flute into action. Time: 4:07 a.m. Rain pouring, wind strong - perfect for what we wanted to do. The chosen tool I had in mind for this particular exercise of badger protection was the bobcat: small enough to go anywhere, robust enough to do almost anything. I made a couple of sandwiches, put the dogs into the bucket of the bobcat and off we went.

As we approached the badger sett, winding in and out amongst the trees, there were a couple of young badgers still out at play. They were far too trusting, we stopped the bobcat near the sett and walked towards the end of the wood to inspect the boulders I’d left there a couple of days earlier. Our job this morning was to strategically place these in and around the sett for anti-sniping deterrents. The two dogs Mitch and Shep cockily walked around more interested in the rabbits than anything I was thinking of doing.  As I walked back from the boulders to the bobcat the furthest tunnel from the badger sett always looked to me as if it was the badgers bolt hole. There, just in the shadow of the opening, was a big badger’s head just looking out seeing what we were doing. This would be all too easy if you were of a mind to do them harm, they were far too trusting. The dogs were told to keep well back as the bobcat and I started to position the boulders - the bobcat was invaluable, definitely the correct tool choice, tightly turning around the trees, lifting these boulders up, putting them precisely down onto the ground, getting more and more sticky due to the torrential rain which was getting decidedly worse. You would never believe that it’s the 15^th of June.

I felt sure the machine was always trying to go one step further by talking to you through its engine, growling when it was biting for grip, positively purring when it was releasing its load of rock around the badger sett. The day was wearing on, we took shelter by the side of the machine, Mitch and Shep looked like drowned rats, the weather was really cheesing them off. I lit up the stove and put the kettle on and we all had some lunch, quite a miserable affair due to the weather. Mitch and Shep were positively no help to the situation at all but most rewarding company. After 20 minutes, I decided to get back to it. We walked around surveying the situation. I found myself lifting my arms, holding an imaginary rifle from various positions within the woodland, imagining sighting-in on the sett. The operation had gone to plan; every clear view point of this sett had been obscured.  There was just one further area down a wooded gulley that was proving to test ones tenacity to the tenth degree. We paced up and down in the pouring rain, this was a killing point, and you could do an awful lot of damage with a rifle from here. The badgers would not know what had hit them and from where this line was from the badger sett it would be possible to get two or three shots off before the badgers could identify where the shots were coming from.  Mitch and Shep had left me to take cover under an old dead fallen beech trunk sat on top of a few rabbit holes of course, “That’s it!” I shouted, “Good dogs,” up into the fired up bobcat, we headed to the trunk. We lowered the bucket on the backside of the trunk and we started to push it down the wooded gulley sixty yards downhill from the sett. It looked perfect. The next step was to prepare a little surprise.

I felt sure that if this sett were to be attacked it would be from its vulnerable point, down by the now in-position beech trunk.  We left the bobcat in the woodland, spade and bucket in hand, a thirty minute walk across the fields to a particularly good piece of trout fishing water where, in the week, I discovered a very new young wasp nest. The skill of nest excavation is trying to dig it out whole. I dug into the bank, around the nest, gently lifting out the whole thing keeping as much earth around the young nest as possible. This awful, cold, wet and windy weather makes wasps very dummel and dozy. I then very gingerly lowered it into the bucket and then put a sod of earth on top for good measure. There were now a few wasps buzzing about, ones that had left the nest during the gentle excavation and a few braving the weather returning home with their nest building material.  We started to walk back towards the wood with a definite spring in our step, there was something quite unnerving walking in the pouring rain with a bucketful of angry wasps. When we got back to the woodland, we dug a hole and embedded the wasp nest by the dead beech trunk that we rolled down earlier.  Any badger sniper now, resting his gun, taking aim on the beech stump was in for a nasty surprise. Wasps take a dim view of being trod on by snipers.

The time was now 5:45 p.m. We had been at it all day.  We were soaking wet, dog tired but very content. All objectives had been achieved.  The badger sett now had taken over the disguise as a shabby chic woodland environmental garden with a fantastic rockery.  One couldn’t help thinking that Bunny Guinness herself would indeed be proud to enter this into the Chelsea Flower Show.  This family of badgers were now well and truly “Off Grid.” Operation Mozart’s Magic Flute had been accomplished.

Mozart's Magic Flute

      Nothing is more inspirational and rewarding to the ear than birdsong first thing in the morning, in the middle of June. The common garden Thrush, which is not quite so common these days, has got to be the most celebratory joyful song of them all. "Right, let's get to it, early start this morning to check out the badger set." A quick bowl of cornflakes, it was 5:04am. Out to the landrover and we were off, myself and the two dogs, Mitch and Shep. We arrived at the woodland to be greeted by four fallow deer and a munkjack, all was terribly serene. As we walked up through the beech, oak and ash plantation the sound was quite breathtaking.  It's really no surprise to me how Beethoven in some of his most memorable works used his woodwind section to try and imitate these wonderful creatures. The same could be said for Vivaldi; musical geniuses. Birdsong has always been a major inspiration of music since the beginning of time, and the two collies, Mitch and Shep, seemed to appreciate the sound just as much as I. The badger set had been worked on by the badgers throughout the night. They had had a major turfing out of old bedding and replaced it with new and it looked totally peaceful. As the three of us stood there amongst the monstrous looking badger holes I'm sure we were all struck on just how obvious it all looked once you got here listening to the glorious sounds around us, the magnificent trees, dawn in its finest glory: having badgers shot is not an option. The news this last week has been full of GCHQ, Google, Obama and intelligence surveillance. There was nothing for it; this badger set is going ‘off grid!': Operation Mozart's Magic Flute.

If you are ever lucky enough to be within earshot when the garden Thrush sings, to each and everyone of us, a little heaven brings.

Woodpecker Blues

         If, like me, you love to wake up early - around 5:45 to be precise - and lie in bed, listening to the sublime sound of the dawn chorus, I hope that it’s not interrupted, like mine was one morning, by a rat-a-ta tat which seemingly got louder as the morning wore on.  By 5:55 it was time to get up, the noise still ringing around the house. At first, it took me some minutes of investigation to locate the window that this noise was coming from, until I gave my wife quite a fright with my exclamation of  “There it is!” after espying a Great Spotted Woodpecker trying to get in on the wide jam of the landing window.  All this was ten days ago and I have tried almost everything to stop it; the damage is horrendous.  I decided that I had had enough and that it was time to take a stand: Sunday mornings were about to change, I had to get even with this spotted wood chomper.  Yesterday, with the help of my wife, we sorted through the children’s furry toys, “This one is ugly enough”, shouted the wife, as she held up a rather large fluffy tiger cub.  “If that’s the best we’ve got, that will have to do” I sighed. “Don’t you think it looks nasty enough, Allan?” she queried, giving it a little shake. I gesticulated in a roundabout fashion and admitted we would just have to cross our fingers and perhaps our toes. We lodged this furry moggy into position right in front of the window on the inside, held up by a rather nice Wedgwood Ramshead vase - the deterrent was in place.  “Come on woodpecker,” we both said, “bring it on.”  This morning was nowhere near as sunny but, at about 5:20 we both awoke, listening to that heavenly sound of the dawn chorus: finches, the tits, the blackbirds, pigeons all having their bit to say in the world, utterly charming.  But truth to be told we were anticipating the roughneck sound of the rat-a-tat-tat at any moment … but it didn’t come.  We opened the bedroom door gingerly waiting to see if the spotted rebel rouser was wanting to chance his arm with the ugly looking moggy. To our delight, the rascal didn’t dare – the mog had obviously done the trick! “What’ll happen when he gets used to it?” my wife asked with a grin from ear to ear, “We can always try one of those teletubbies,” I replied.

         The Great Spotted Woodpecker was far less prevalent than the Green Woodpecker, across the Cotswolds; now the numbers seem to be quite equal. Both magnificent woodland birds.

George Would Have Told Them to Keep Dodging the Lead

Agriculture is by its shear nature in constant flux, one farming practice after another being brought in to make for even more efficiency. Farmers are under ever more pressure to deliver cheaper food and that, in my humble opinion, is where we’ve shot ourselves in the foot, time and time again. The Independent ran a story the other day, saying less than 1% of the population is now employed on the land, the lowest number in agricultural history. It’s not just the man power changes that have been so striking, it’s all the other imbalances that have gone along with it. Every small town had its own slaughter house, butcher’s shop and cattle market, making miles travelled between rearing on the farms to house wife’s shopping baskets much less dramatic. Nowadays, with much larger super abattoirs and far fewer cattle markets, animals are travelling greater distances than ever before in the history of world agriculture. A dairy animal, for example, can be purchased in Carlisle one day and be in Devon the next; I believe that the distances being travelled month in and month out   is probably the greatest cause of the spread of Bovine TB in our herds. A parallel can be here made with TB in the human population, which is making a comeback in the UK not only because of the withdrawal of our vaccination programme, but because of the ever-increasing numbers moving in and out of the country, poverty, poor diet and down-right wretchedness – perhaps another parallel with the bovine community is to be drawn from the latter.

The proposed national badger cull is an ill-founded, all-guns-blazing approach with little hard evidence to back it up. There are plenty of examples of grave mistakes made by the government with regard to agriculture, which have had profound effects. Who can forget the Mad Cow Disease, caused by the smashing down of Scrapie diseased sheep carcasses into animal feed, all done under the banner of better efficiency? And who is to say that the badger cull won’t be seen as another huge mistake on the books in a few years’ time?

Culling badgers to stop Bovine TB in cattle is not the answer; the disease will still be just as profound but with fewer badgers, leaving a gaping hole in our delicate ecosystems. We even have previous culls to look back to as predictors of the outcome: an experimental cull of 11,000 badgers in 1971 in this country, commented on by Sir David Attenborough, did not make any difference to the incidence of this disease. Actually, no, that’s not quite right. This did make a difference to the incidence of the disease: it increased its spread! This conclusion has been reached after the spending of over £49m of tax-payers’ money and over 150 scientific papers. We’ve got to look at this from another stand point: as has been shown in the human population, vaccination is key – of both badgers and cattle - possibly through some kind of feed source. This has been shown to be both efficacious and cost-effective. Until that day arrives:  badgers, keep dodging the lead.

                If you’d like more information as to why the badger cull is not the answer to the problem of Bovine TB, please take a look at this short video, from Sir David and a great many other experts in this field: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhojkHMyaJg.

Lastly, one of the greatest writers of the 20^th-Century - if not the best - George Orwell, eventually succumbed to the disease and retired to his cottage in Scotland. It’s a real shame that we can’t turn back the clocks and have his opinion on the subject.

Give a Boy a Fish, a Good Barbeque, Teach a Boy to Fish He'll Have Fun for a Lifetime.

My daughter Sophie arrived back from Kings College London shattered from her medical exams first year. "Phew" she said thumping her bags into the back of the car, "It's great to be home".  The following morning, Saturday, sat around the breakfast table telling us all about it, her mother, brother and me, this end of term medical poster business sounded rather daunting to us all.  Conversation then turned on things to do.  Sophie was to go shopping with her mum for some mum and daughter time, Sam was coming fishing with me.  Having made up his rod off we went.  The River Windrush was absolutely beautiful, Mayfly everywhere, late but very welcome, fish jumping the length and breadth of the river.  "We'll have some fish today" said Sam, "I'm not so sure," came the reply, "even the best looking artificial Mayfly can have a job to attract these gorged-on Mayfly trout".  Sam went one way down the river, I went the other.  After about forty minutes I hooked an absolute beauty close to two pound I guess, but in our haste to leave the house we had forgotten to pick up the landing net and I had hooked this trout on a particularly steep piece of bank.  After what seemed to be an hour which was in fact ten minutes of a furiously fit fighting brown trout doing his damnedest to break my line I had him down in the water from the bank beneath my feet.  I turned for the landing net on my belt it wasn't there.  I shouted down to Sam "Sam, have you got your landing net?" He shouted back from a distance, "Don't shout dad, I'm fishing and no I haven't got it" then I heard "Oh no its stuck," he'd got his fly stuck in the bush behind him as he turned to bark back up the river to me.  The trout by this time seemed to have had enough of this shouting about, looked up out of the water and one final leap and belly-flop finish had separated himself from the fly on the end of my line.  Sam had walked back to me with his fly stuck firmly in the tree, although we never caught anything, another superb day on the river.