Yesterday had been a beautiful sunny day, but in the late afternoon, the clouds rolled in and I walked across the fields towards Double Wood in the evening under a low threatening sky.

I left the footpath just after crossing the stream in the bottom of the wood and forced my way through thick vegetation very slowly in order to make no noise. I came to where the side of the valley reared up suddenly, thickly covered with trees and bushes, to the badger sett at the top, and stopped suddenly as I heard a familiar quiet whickering noise from up above. In my mind’s eye, I could see the scene – two or three badgers bounding about joyously, playfully chasing each other’s tail.

I stood motionless, waiting to hear more and judge where they were, because although the main hole was immediately above me, there were several other holes further along the bank outside which they could be playing. After several minutes, hearing no more from them, I started to climb the bank, moving in slow motion, and taking great care of my handholds in order to make no noise which would give me away. Eventually, I reached the top and stood with my back to the oak tree, facing the main hole a few yards away.

For the next hour, I saw and heard nothing from the badgers. A robin sang his song from the top of my oak tree, a jay landed on a branch, swore when he saw me and fled, and magpies shouted raucously. As the light faded, the tawny owls took up their duet further down the wood and lapwings flying circuits above the field uttered their weird, ghostly calls which had so alarmed me many years ago when I did not know what sort of living thing made such a noise.

The wind remained strong from the south, so the badgers could not possibly smell my presence, and I was confident that they had not heard me, so I puzzled over where they were and what they were doing. I also wondered whether the vegetation had been as high at this time last year, whether I should go to watch one of the fifty odd other setts I know next time, and how come it was June and I hadn’t seen one of this year’s cubs yet.

I heard a shuffling noise behind me, and looking down the slope up which I had climbed, I could see a badger snuffling in the greenery, probably looking for worms. As it quested forward, I could see where I had walked an hour previously just a yard downwind from its nose, and an instant later it gave a loud snort of disgust and dashed off along the bottom of the wood.

I climbed back down the bank and walked along the bottom of the valley in the twilight, beside green wedges of flag iris and the fledgling shoots of butterbur which would form canopies of huge leaves later in the summer. The stream tinkled beside me, and I felt again that Double Wood was a beautiful and possibly magical place.