Woodlife

You probably don’t know how much this photo means to me. Ok so it’s dark and blurry but it’s my first photo of one of my local Badgers.

After many hours trying to even see one of them I managed to actually get a photo at last.

There are a number of problems with the local sett. Firstly, I don’t get up there too often although it’s not too far away. The second problem is that the sett is on a long, low rise with many sett entrances. Most of these are on top of the rise so if they do come out, you only tend to see a fleeting glimpse of a silhouette as you’re generally at the base of that rise. Grass growth makes it almost impossible to see anything in the late spring and summer. The final problems is that the area is in the middle of a field. The prevailing wind is not conducive to where the best lay up position is.

On this ocassion, I said sod convention and went on top of the rise and laid up about 10 yards away from the most recently dug hole. As the sun went down out came this chap. He immediately ran to a hole even further away before I could even point the camera. When he came out of that hole, I managed to get a couple of shots off. Only one was good enough to put up.

I’ve heard reports that there are cubs about but I didn’t see any here. In fact, this was the only animal I saw. Perhaps I was too close and he got a scent of me. There was no movement for the next hour (in the area I was watching anyway) and so I called it a night.

Nevertheless, a nice result for me and I went home grinning all the way.

Pablo.

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