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.