It had rained on and off for much of the day, but the sun shone from a clear blue sky as I walked along the river bank through the wet grass in the evening. The first flush of dandelion flowers had changed to seedheads, and the white spheres in the water meadow were lit by golden sunlight as I crossed towards Quesse wood.

The wood contained a rich blue carpet of bluebells in full flower, and as I settled against a tree opposite the badger sett, a late bee buzzed past my foot, going from flower to flower. I listened to bird song for half an hour until the first badger appeared at the usual hole just before nine o’clock. It was very cautious, but after sniffing the air thoroughly, surprised me by going up the bank towards the field.

Ten minutes later, scanning the sett with my binoculars, I saw a badger appear from another hole backwards, humping soil between its front paws. Perhaps I had missed him when he first came up and checked for danger, for he was totally confident and engrossed in his task of home extension, repeatedly humping loads of earth up the tunnel and out onto the mound outside the hole.

After a while, the one which had gone up the bank returned to the hole and re-emerged with another one with which it scratched companionably. They then both went up the bank and settled in front of a big sycamore tree above the hole, rolling on their backs to scratch themselves, in between grooming each other.

Two more badgers then emerged from the same hole and joined the other two in a very playful mood. All four badgers spent about five minutes chasing each other, biting each others tails and indulging in mock mating, while I watched through binoculars from the other side of the valley in the deepening dusk. It became more difficult to follow what was going on in the darkness, and when three of them disappeared, I could not tell whether they had gone back into the sett or had cleared off hunting. The fourth, who I felt sure was the suckling female, stood on the mound outside the main hole, listening intently, and I hoped that I might be about to see her cubs. However, she went back down the hole and did not reappear.

I waited for a while, watched a heron fly across the strip of still bright sky, and jumped as a fox screamed about thirty yards away towards the mouth of the valley. I scanned the darkness with my binoculars, hoping to catch sight of a movement, and then started to stalk quietly along the badger path toward the fox. As I reached the bluff at the mouth of the valley, he screamed hoarsely from the opposite bank again, three times, urgent and aggressive. I stood in the darkness with all my senses tingling, but heard no more.

As I crossed the water meadow, the dandelion globes glowed in the moonlight, and a light mist moved slowly over the surface of the river.

After several weeks of cold air from the northeast, we now have the prevailing wind from the southwest, from the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic, fresh from dumping its rain on Wales. This is the heading I need to watch the Double Wood sett undetected, so off I went earlier tonight.

As I crossed the fields, I saw and heard a group of youngsters sky-larking in the upper part of the wood, and then as I crossed the last field before following the path dropping down into the wood, I realized that it was definitely not going to be a good evening. Three young men were standing on the edge of the wood, apparently using trees for target practice.

They fidgeted uneasily as I passed them without speaking, and then resumed their barrage. After I crossed the stream in the bottom of the valley, I looked back to make sure that I was unobserved before leaving the footpath and climbing the slope up to the badger sett. They probably had no idea of its existence, and I did not want to enlighten them. I climbed into cover up a little used badger path leading into the sett, emerging at the top of the slope in front of the main hole where the clan liked to sit and scratch and socialize. I put my back against an oak tree just a few yards away from the hole, and settled down for what I knew would be a long wait.

For the next hour, I listened to the shouts and screams of the teenagers further up the wood, and, much closer, the raucous banter and continuous firing from the Three Compressed Air Musketeers. Sometimes the English countryside can seem as lonely and empty of people as anyone wishing to observe the rest of the animal kingdom would want, but other times, the same place can feel part of a small and over-crowded island.

Eventually, the noise from the teenagers subsided as they departed for home, and I was left with the marksmen – I am sure that the local birdlife was in no danger as the noise they made proclaimed their presence and the firing was continuous and indiscriminate, and despite the occasional pellet zinging past, I was quite safe with a stout oak tree behind me. At last, one of them suggested it was time for a drink, and off they went.

Within a minute, a robin was singing his song from the top of a nearby tree, and was soon joined by the rest of the wood’s feathered residents, returning to their usual territories. As it got darker, a tawny owl kee-wicked and was answered, and further down the wood I could hear a cuckoo, for the first time this year.

I wondered whether it was worth coming back to this sett, as badgers tend to come up later if they are often disturbed, and I was considering the other setts I know when a movement on the skyline grabbed my eye – a fox was trotting along the edge of the wood just the other side of the badger holes, no doubt hoping to find breakfast further down towards the river.

Just when I was about to give up, a badger came up out of a hole to my left, trotted across in front of me, and made its way down the steep bank toward the valley bottom. A few minutes later, a second badger emerged, and followed the first – no sitting to scratch, no grooming each other. They had obviously been listening to the racket, and were heading for the safety of the dense wood and determined to get started on their night’s hunting, as the hours of darkness are short at this time of year.

The wind continued to blow from the northeast this evening, so I decided to go back to the sett across the river in Quesse Wood, where I could watch from the other side of the valley with the wind taking my scent directly away from the sett. A sheet of grey cloud hid the sky, but as I walked down the track to the river, there was a clear red slot along the horizon before me where the sun would show briefly when it set.

A heron was hunched on the river bank hoping that I would not see him. When I lifted my binoculars, he stretched his neck in resignation and flapped off heavily downriver. A bit further along were the three male mallards who had been pestering a female for the last few weeks. They took to the water as I came opposite them and swam away. No sign of the female – perhaps she was sitting on eggs somewhere.

As I crossed the water meadow towards the wood at the mouth of the valley, I could see the powdery blue mist lying under the trees. By the time I was crossing the barbed wire fence, it had resolved into the individual bluebell flowers which make the wood spectacularly beautiful in Spring. As I walked across the mouth of the valley, a mass of golden Marsh Marigolds beside a boggy pool caught my eye, and then I climbed the slope on the far side through several patches of wood anemone.

When I came level with the badger sett, I chose a tree to rest against from where I could see the hole from which the badgers emerged a couple of weeks ago. After 10 minutes, a black and white face appeared above the mound in front of the hole and sampled the air with characteristic jerky movements. A second badger appeared beside the first, but both were extremely cautious and went back down again after a few minutes. For the next half an hour, I listened to the bird song and watched the pigeons flying from tree to tree as the light faded. Why don’t they settle in the first tree they land in? Why don’t they fly straight to the tree they will settle in? In half an hour of looking and listening in a wood at dusk, it is surprising how many questions come to mind, and it is good that sometimes some answers arrive as well.

At five to nine, the badgers came back up. I was on the same level as the hole, and could only see the top half of their bodies as they scratched and groomed each other at the sett entrance, still showing extreme caution. After a while, one left along a path leading up the valley while the other two were joined by a fourth. After a while, closely watching what I could see of the three on the mound, I had the idea that one was an adult female while the other two were definitely smaller and were probably her cubs from last year. Just as I came to this conclusion, she came out on to the path beside the mound of earth outside the hole, sat down on her backside and groomed her tummy with great concentration. I could then clearly see that she was in milk – as I had thought, there were cubs below ground, but they must have been born late if they were still not ready to emerge.

After a while, I could hear a steady swish, swish down in the valley, and the badgers on the mound anxiously peered down at the noise. I thought at first that the badger which had left was returning with bedding (dry grass and leaves), but then in the half light I saw him coming up the bank towards me. Staying motionless, I watched as he browsed along the woodland floor, looking for worms and beetles. He passed me by within a couple of yards, and did not return. He must have turned right at the top of the slope, otherwise he would have caught my scent and hurtled back to the sett.

As it got darker, two badgers left the sett towards the mouth of the valley, but one remained – I expect that it was the female but it was too dark to be sure. When they were out of sight, I left and made my way back to the village in the dark.

Watched the weather forecasts last week, and the wind was from the northeast all the time – no good for the Double Wood sett. On Saturday evening, the wind was from the northwest, and a check of the map showed that it might do, so off I went.

I crossed the stream in the bottom of the wood, climbed the bank up to the sett, and settled with my back to a tree a few yards from the main hole. What wind there was came and went, and was carrying my scent to the left of the hole in front of me. If the badgers came up from the main hole and moved off to the right as they usually did, all would be well.

Ten minutes later, a badger appeared at a hole to my left and trotted across in front of me, disappearing down the main hole. He really should have smelt me! A few minutes later, a badger backed out of the hole, snarling and whickering in play with another – this family has always been very relaxed, and their behaviour showed that they must have forgotten about the interference by badger diggers.

However, the wind had died entirely, and my scent must have been diffusing out from me in all directions, so inevitably, both badgers stopped playing and started sniffing the air anxiously. Eventually, they retreated down the hole, and I slipped away in order to cause no further disturbance.

A beautiful sunny evening, but cold. I parked the car and climbed the stile into the field, watched by a herd of cattle munching grass the other side of an electrified wire. As I walked across the fields, the wind was at my back, which was not ideal, as I would have to be on the side of the sett that the badgers tended to roam around.

Double Wood is in a wide, thickly wooded valley, and it is impossible to see the badger sett from the opposite side, so I had to get up close. I followed the path as it dropped down into the wood, and crossed the small stream at the bottom. The sett was at the top of the slope in front of me, a little way down the valley, so I climbed up, noting a dung pit containing fresh excrement on the way. When I reached the barbed wire fence at the top, I walked slowly along the edge until I came to the sett.

The main hole from which I had seen the whole family emerge last year was much the same, but just inside the barbed wire were two holes which had been dug with spades and then filled in – the sett had been attacked by badger-diggers since the last time I was there. I sat down opposite the main hole with a feeling of sadness and anger, and thought about the video sequences that I had on tape, showing the adults and the cubs grooming each other on the mound of earth outside the hole now in front of me.

There were certainly survivors in the sett, as the fresh dung showed, and the spade-dug holes had obviously been dug a considerable time ago. However, as I sat listening to the bird song and watching the shifting light beams as the sun sank beyond the trees on the other side of the valley, no badgers emerged. At 8.30, I was convinced that they should have come up if they were there, so I moved off down the valley a short distance to where I could watch some other holes which the Double Wood family often used.

Five minutes later, I looked back where I had been and glimpsed a black and white shape running back towards the main hole. Damn! The badger must have come up soon after I moved, and happened to come across the spot where I had been sitting.

I stayed another twenty minutes, but with no real hope of seeing badgers which were now alerted to my presence. As I walked back across the darkening fields, shadowy rabbits scuttled into the hedgerows before me, and I shivered in the cold night air.