Invisible Badgers

Last Wednesday evening I arrived home from work to see the Coopers’ disability buggy parked up in the parking space outside my house, normally reserved for my Land Rover.  I parked up behind it and walked around to the kitchen door to find in the kitchen, the Coopers and my wife, Jackie sat around the kitchen table with a cup of tea in hand in deep discussion.  “What’s wrong now?” was the thought crossing my mind as I went inside.  After the briefest of Hellos, the Coopers were straight in to the reason of them being there. 

“The Foxtons have no Badger cubs and they are of the same opinion as us.  That wall you built and all those blackthorn and hawthorn saplings you planted have upset the Badgers and have put them off their business of having young.  What have you got to say about that?” quizzed Mrs. Cooper.  She then went onto say.

“The walling and planting was done solely on your advice of protecting the Badger sett and making it more impregnable against Badger baiters and anyone else who wished them harm.  It seems to the Foxtons and us that all you have managed to do is frighten them all away.”

“There were only three Badgers in the whole of that parcel of woodland and I very much doubt that our works on their protection programme has had any bearing on this particular situation whatsoever.”

Mrs Cooper explained how Antonio and her two children along with Lord and Lady Foxton have been left bitterly disappointed and their nightly visits with a handful of peanuts have been an entire waste of time and so very disheartening. 

Mr. and Mrs. Cooper and Jackie were all looking at me with very inquisitive facial expressions and I knew what was coming.  Mrs. Cooper then asked,

“Can we bring them along and show them Daddy Cool’s family?”

“No!” I snapped.  “Daddy Cool and his family does not exist to anyone outside of this kitchen.  Mozart’s Magic Flute, the protection programme that was brought in almost a year ago has to remain top secret, the less people that know of their whereabouts, the safer they will remain.”

The Coopers were not happy.  There was now silence and an atmosphere.  The Coopers then raised themselves off the kitchen chairs.

“Best be on our way,” they said. “There’s no talking to him when he is in these moods,” they said to Jackie as they pushed their chairs tidily under the table.   As they were leaving through the kitchen door, I shouted back to the Coopers.  “Over and around the Foxton’s Badger sett it is ancient Beech woodland, which is only just starting to come into leaf.  The Foxton’s Badgers could well be waiting for leaf cover before bringing their cubs out and showing them off to the woodland inhabitants.” The Coopers nodded their heads unconvinced and then they were gone.  Jackie had gone so very quiet and I was now on the phone to Nimrod, Foxton’s Game Keeper. 

“Nimrod,” I asked, “How’s it all going?”

“Not too well to be honest with you Allan. The Foxtons aren’t pleased, they reckon you’ve upset their Badger sett with all that wall building.”

“Mmm, I’ve just heard the same from the Coopers” was my reply. “I will be up at the sett for the next few nights to see for myself.  Are any members of the Foxton family due to come down to the sett have you heard?”

Nimrod’s reply was slow and intentional.  “There is nothing for them to see, there are no cubs.”

“Right, I’ll be over this evening about 11pm, so keep away from the sett for the next few nights and I will see you on Saturday.”

“Ok,” replied Nimrod.”

That night I drove along to the Foxton’s Badger sett, parked the Land Rover up nicely hidden and walked the 500 yards towards the Badger sett.  The rain was now falling steadily and the stone wall that I had built around the bottom boundary of the woodland, the planting of the blackthorn and hawthorn all now in leaf, was looking a joy to behold.  It looked to me as if the work I had done in the winter had always been there.  As I walked up the bank on the opposite side to gain view over the wall I could see that the Badger sett was no longer in use.  The Badgers had left it.  My heart sank.  As I sat there pondering three Roe deer pushed their way through the newly planted blackthorn and hawthorn.  “You won’t be doing that in five years’ time,” I thought, “once it has grown thick and impossible to penetrate.”  I sat there until 2am and then decided to go home.

 As I walked back towards the Land Rover I saw 400 yards from the old Badger sett down towards the base of the wall a Badger.  I stopped stock still.  He hadn’t seen me, he was far too busy foraging about for worms and slugs which this wet weather was bringing out.  He scurried back up the side of the hedge towards the new wall and then he just seemed to disappear.  I walked back slowly, the rain still falling steadily with no wind, not even a stir of a breeze.  “That’s why the Badger did not pick me up,” my scent was staying within 20 meters of me.  I crawled on my hands and knees the last 40 to 50 yards to where I thought the Badger had disappeared and then I found it. There was a large hole at the base of the wall. I stood up slowly and peered over the top of the wall and there they were.  A mother Badger with two cubs.  Fat round, barrelled like.  She had done well.  This sett was one hundred meters from where their old sett was and it was right in the bottom of the new wall.  I left them feeling most pleased returning to the Land Rover and headed for home.  I told Jackie the news first thing Thursday morning, she in turn told the Coopers who then relayed it to the Foxtons.

 Friday evening, as I got in from work there was a black Range Rover occupying the space for my Land Rover.  I walked around to the kitchen door and this time in the kitchen was Lord and Lady Foxton with Antonio and her two children, all of them smiling and laughing with Jackie and the situation could not be more different than the previous Wednesday evening. 

As I opened the kitchen door, the Foxtons were full of congratulations to me on the success of the Badger protection programme.  “All’s well that ends well,” I thought.

Please watch my short film on Mother Badger and her four Badger cubs,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8qrnDOn18w&feature=youtube_gdata

Daddy Cool's four playful cubs.

Badgers Free Range Easter Eggs

The weather has been a complete joy with plenty of sunshine along with a drying easterly wind. All the wet ground almost a fading memory.

The Badger cubs are getting stronger every day and to my delight, Daddy Cool on Friday evening decided that his whole family were to move and so like a well-rehearsed play they were off with Daddy Cool leading the way followed by the cubs with Mrs Badger bringing up the rear. After twenty minutes or so it was obvious to me where he was taking them all. He was taking them north to where the woodland gives way to the sweeping valley below.  Very often I have watched Daddy Cool in this imposing place and long ago I had nick named this extraordinary vantage point as the ‘Throne of Daddy Cool’ for when you climb up into it you can see for miles, right the way down through the valley and beyond. Daddy Cool would put his head up into the air, sniffing this way and that detecting scents from miles around. 

Down in the valley where they take their night time excursions, worms and slugs are going to be bountiful.  Their future is looking extremely promising. 

The last few nights last year’s cubs have joined in with all the playful frolicking and I feel sure that it will not be too long before the rest of the Badgers join Daddy Cool and his family on the Northern boundary.  It always strikes me as quite amusing, but my Badgers, the ones I watch and study, they always wait for leaf cover before offering their young to the outside, when they seem to be more relaxed and at peace moving their young through the woodland.  Each autumn, the ritual is totally reversed when they move back into the thick heart of the wood to winter and to eventually have their cubs. 

As I watched all the Badgers varying in ages right down to the cubs of the present day you see a remarkable bond.  It’s a woodland community worthy of the word ‘Community’ because they really do seem to look out and look after one another. 

The Cull zones of 2013 annihilated and destroyed Badger habitats forever.  The program put in place by Owen Paterson, our Environmental Secretary and DEfRA stating that “70% of the Badgers were to be taken out cleanly by marksmen” was a gross exaggeration. The reality of the situation was far more barbaric and grizzly with Badgers being wounded and in some cases taking days to die in their setts.  An animal that has always stood squarely on his own four paws, an animal who looks after and cares for his own, an animal that truly enhances nature and the habitat in which he lives is worth far more respect than Owen Paterson and DEfRA has him earmarked for. 

The Coopers have been informed on Daddy Cool’s move to the Northern boundary and they have already taken up supplies, kettle and teabags for their spring and summer night stakeouts.  The Coopers, just like me deem the whole Badger Cull debacle as an excuse by some deranged individuals to wage war on Badgers.  Badger baiting is on the up and this is my gravest concern.  The cruelty and mind numbing violence metered out to a British icon is something I blame Owen Paterson and DEfRA for.  By having any kind of Badger cull whatsoever, you are immediately weakening the protected status of the British Badger. By definition, the words ‘Badger Cull’ is to kill Badgers. 

Our Princess Royal who favours the gassing of Badger setts as being the most humane way to deal with the situation also said in her piece to the BBC on how it will lead to larger hedgehog numbers and lots more ground nesting birds, as if the British Badger is in anyway responsible for the falling numbers in hedgehogs and ground nesting birds.  Total utter nonsense.  Misguided propaganda at the expense of a British icon.  Hedgehog numbers are down.  One of the main reasons for this is the amount of poisonous slug pellets sold in our garden centres and ground nesting bird numbers are down solely due to the change to British farming practises.  Thirty years ago our main stock feed in the winter was hay, this would be cut in the middle of June, and by this time ground nesting birds had flown the nest.  Nowadays however, so many hay meadows are used for the making of silage, the first cut being on a good season, can be the second week of May when most ground nesting birds have young still on the nest.

The Badger, in reality has got so very few faults, much like our country Fox.  He lives on his wits and he lives always not far from the edge, bending and shaping his years’ activities to the greatest power on earth, Mother Nature and he wears her like a glove in total harmony of the habitat and conditions around him.

The Badgers Easter treat this year and like every other Easter is a dozen free range chicken eggs which they roll about for a bit and then devour with relish.  Happy Easter my black and white friends.

Please watch my short film of Mother Badger playing with her cubs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDaPqx-c1CA

One of my favourite and enjoyable pass times, watching Badgers happy, frolicking about, playing with Mum.

Baby Badgers Bounce Where They Want To.

The magic of the woodland brings us new life and without doubt the enhancement of the small black and white faces is a joy to behold on these gorgeous spring evenings. 

With the aid of the Roe Deer, Dini the Fox, the Barn Owls and the Tawny Owls I like to think it has been a joint effort of nature that the woodland has once again been gifted with a new generation of iconic woodland inhabitants. 

No wonder Daddy Cool looks so smug and pleased with himself as I passed him by further down the woodland for on seeing his new young family with Mother Badger I can honestly say I have never seen a finer family of Badgers in the whole of my life. 

This week has been their first time out of the sett and as you can see from my short film, they are fat, rounded and playful. 

The presence of the British Badger is a privilege and is to be cherished.  We must all do everything we can to keep the Badger cull a thing of the past rather than a reality of tomorrow so please take time and sign the 131 petition.

This is my short film of Mother Badger having a well -deserved rest only to be disturbed by two of her playful cubs.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tuMo45Cp5w

Mother Badger having a well deserved rest.

Baby Badgers disturbing Mum and want to play.

A Royal Pardon for the Badger.

This week we have seen the weather return to something resembling normality, sunshine and the nights creeping out further and further into the fullness of springtime. 

We are into the second week of the trout fishing season and the river meadows are full of lush grass giving off the most fantastic heart stopping emerald green beauty that you only do really see in April.  Blossom in the hedgerows, birds’ busy nest building and rearing their young, it is truly a magical time.  New life and new beginnings. 

We have got quite a few nest boxes around the house and in the garden but an amusing incident my wife noticed this week on how a very disgruntled Blue Tit was getting more and more agitated by the visits of the postman.  On closer inspection of Jackie’s concerns we found that the Blue Tit in question was nesting in the post box and was seemingly getting thoroughly cheesed off with the bombardment of mail, mostly junk that was coming their way and disturbing them almost on a daily basis.  Without wasting any more time and to try to gain parity of the situation my wife decided to make a sign for the post box saying quite simply, “Blue Tit in residence, please put mail in the bag by the side of, thank you.”  Ingenious, I thought. 

The fly fishing season started on April 1^st and finishes September 31^st. The excitement of the start of each season is as great now as it was when I was a ten year old.  Then, the only excitement that could compare to a day’s fishing was when I rolled up my sleeve and delved my arm into a barrel of sawdust for the annual village fete, Lucky Dip.  I just didn’t know what exciting gem or dull, boring object I was going to draw for myself.  As much like fishing then as it would be today for each visit to the river I never know what bounties I am going to extract from it.  The uppermost constant is, a day’s fishing which is filled with a beauty and the overriding irresistability of being out and about amongst nature at her most prolific time of the year.  Skylarks that high up in the sky you cannot see them but their song from the heavens can melt away almost all of your day to day problems.  The Lapwings, Plovers, Peewits, whatever you like to call them show off so flamboyantly in their aerial court ship displays and so nonchalantly disguise pathways back to their secret ground nests in the hope that their feigning of injury will throw their predators off track away from their eggs and young. 

The Moorhens, the Swans, the Ducks and the Kingfishers, all busy, busy, restocking their countryside with their regeneration of young to keep the countryside as full and as wholesome tomorrow as we all see it today. 

As I sit on the bank of the river listening to the flow of water race over a few boulders on its way to a lazy meandering bend I see a Heron stood on one leg just past the bend, almost in a trance waiting, for that one fish.  It is noticeable how the Heron fishes where the water is slow rather than trying to fish where the water babbles along at speed.  As I watch, I think of the Badger cull that is going to once again wreak havoc in parts of Gloucestershire and Somerset and would like our own Owen Paterson, our Environment Minister and DEfRA to be a little more like the Heron, to make policies and determine their course of actions in quieter waters than make ill judged, adhoc judgements in the rapids.

The future, having seen and listened to the evidence on combatting Bovine TB is with vaccination. 

I was somewhat saddened and disappointed to hear our Princess Royal’s views as she described to BBC Country File that in her opinion gassing is the most humane way to exterminate Badgers that could be a threat to a cattle herd.  In reality, the most humane way of dealing with Badgers and cattle alike is vaccination.  Of course, this requires a lot more nouse and by its sheer nature, more forward thinking, but anything to spare us all, not least the Badger from the atrocities that were unleashed upon him in 2013 can only be of benefit to nature and conservation and the whole countryside in general. 

Prince Charles has done an awful lot for nature and conservation over the whole of my lifetime and without doubt is a great ambassador for nature, and not just this country’s conservation but the world conservation. I feel sure that the Princess Royal too shares a lot of his views.  I doubt very much that the Princess Royal will ever read anything of the nature that I write about, however, I humbly beseech the Princess Royal on behalf of the British Badger to grant the ‘Hard Man of the Woodlands’ a Royal Pardon, for we, as a nation, simply do not possess the beauty in such numbers as we can afford to shoot, snare, poison or even gas one more solitary soul of them.

Watch my short film of a Badger out for an early evening stroll.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqoX3tjQIM8&feature=youtube_gdata

 Daddy Cool out for an early evening stroll

A Politician’s Expense to The Badger

In a week that has seen some of the worst air pollution on record, an industrial type of smog blowing in from the continent mixed with Saharan dust blown up from Africa, the country has been in a constant haze for almost a week.  Thank goodness the situation has righted itself over the last couple of days with a south-westerly breeze blowing the problem somewhere else. 

This week we have also seen an embarrassed government still trying to cope with the expenses scandal that has rocked Westminster to its very foundations.  All thanks to the incredible investigative journalism of the Daily Telegraph bringing the whole seedy business of MPs expenses on second homes in the capital and such like out into the common domain where the public can digest all the information that has come out over the last few years and judge the honesty and integrity of our MPs and Parliament for themselves. 

Good news this week, the government has abandoned its planned expansion of the Badger Cull as a tool to reduce TB in cattle, but much to my sadness, the pilot culls will continue but there will be no independent oversight to assess their future performance.  This I fear can only be bad news for the British Badger.  The independent monitors who on the collation of all the evidence had stated ‘the Badger Cull of 2013 had failed.’ It now seems most convenient that those monitors are no longer needed.  Strikes to me they are wanting to shoot the messengers as well as the Badgers. 

But listening in to all the ins and outs and the tooings and froings of British politics there seems to be something fundamentally unsound about the whole business.  Maria Miller apologising for her behaviour regarding her expenses in a personal statement to the House of Commons, after MPs rule that she must pay back £5,800, and yet our Prime Minister stands by her and she is still in her Cabinet post.   On listening to the Conservative Chairman, Grant Chaps on a Channel 4 interview with Cathy Newman, he didn’t seem to think that there had been too much wrong doing and everyone should get on with their day to day business of running the country as normal.  However, in the real world the one that most of us dwell in, if we had embezzled monies from an employer or customer by mistake or otherwise I do not think a thirty second apology would cut us much slack. And yet, the Badger cull is going to go on regardless in the Gloucestershire and Somerset culling zones despite the overwhelming evidence that the killing of these animals will make very little to no difference to Bovine TB in cattle herds. 

A moral compass in society is a position that any government, whatever their colour, strives first and foremost to achieve.  It is achieved on respect, integrity and above all else, honesty and fairness.  Being able to preach as well as listen.  But sadly, so very often in British politics you are left miserably underwhelmed and totally disfranchised with so much that comes from the House of Commons. 

Other news, my Badgers are doing exceptionally well.  The Coopers have made two appearances this week up at my Badger sett and I feel sure that the Badgers welcomed their visit with as much enthusiasm as the Coopers gusto in getting there on their cross country and rough terrain, invalidity buggy. A fact that still astonishes me. We have seen visits from Dini the Fox and a Roe Deer buck who also seems to be keeping a close eye on the sett.  There seems to be a competition between the pair of them on who gets to see the baby Badgers first. 

Simple things you might think but to me, it is nature doing what nature does best, looking after its own, showing ingenuity, tenacity, integrity and a basic down to earth honesty of what you see is what you get.  A programme of learning of which some of our politicians would find enlightening and most beneficial.

Watch my short film of a Young Roe Deer Buck, a Badger climbing a tree and a fleeting visit of a Barn Owl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7a4Pq1sC6g&feature=youtube_gdata

A Young Roe Deer Buck keeping an eye on the Maternal Badger Sett hoping to be the first one to espy the new Badger Cubs.