I recovered my breath at the top of the slope, scanned the field with Quesse Wood looming behind it with my binoculars, and tried to determine the direction of the wind. It was a warm evening, with high wisps of cloud forming herringbone tracery across a blue sky, and no wind existed to have any direction. No good for close-up badger watching.

I hid my bike among the thistles in the clearing beside the wood containing the cubs’ sett, and quietly moved a little way down the slope until I could just make out the main hole through the trees on the opposite bank. Behind me was the thin strip of woodland that cloaked the bluff overlooking the flood plain of the Pettypool Brook, and I was hoping to find out why the badgers had departed so enthusiastically in this direction on the two evenings I watched this sett last week.

Through the binoculars, I could see a bundle of dry grass, bedding left out to dry the previous night, and a large stone with which the cubs had probably been playing, lying on the mound of earth outside the hole. Within five minutes, the cubs appeared at the entrance, and immediately took the bedding down the hole before returning in order to play with each other and scratch companionably.

It was some time before one of them crossed the valley towards me, but instead of climbing the bank to my left, as they had done previously, it came straight up towards me and stopped in alarm just a couple of yards away. There was still no wind at all, so my scent would be moving outwards in all directions, and the cub was obviously getting the full effect, jerking his nose in the air in all directions, trying to gauge the danger. All the time, I was in full view, in good light, sitting on the bank absolutely motionless with the video camera rolling, but as usual, he could not make out what I was while I stayed absolutely still. This was not an easy matter, sitting on the steep slope, and my locked muscles became more and more painful as the cub hesitated and it was a relief when eventually he turned and dashed back to the sett.

The cub rejoined his sibling and carried on playing, seeming quite unconcerned by the disturbance. It was quarter of an hour later that one of them crossed the valley and climbed the bank to my left. When it reached the top, I got up and silently tried to locate it. I stalked along the top, listening intently and ready to freeze at any moment if the badger came into view, but it was no good – he must have made off along the top of the bank at speed and was out of sight.

I climbed down the slope until I could see the sett from the floor of the valley and waited. The light was failing rapidly now under the trees, and I studied the holes with binoculars until the other cub reappeared, and was followed by the two adults. Behind me, I became aware of a chomping noise and quiet feet moving through grass, which came closer and closer. When the noise stopped, I turned my head and found that I was being regarded with grave interest by a young heifer, and I was concerned that I might soon be surrounded by the whole herd, which would be the end of my badger watching for the evening. However, after a while, she lost interest in me and moved off.

The badgers, meanwhile, were engaged in their usual scratching and grooming, quite unaffected by browsing cattle and cars on the road close by. I quietly moved up the bank, deciding that it was time to go, but suddenly there was a crashing and scampering as the cub who had left earlier returned. He had obviously come across my scent trail on his way back, and dashed back in alarm. Where had he been? There would have been time for him to get to the Old Mill and back, so perhaps somebody is putting out scraps there.

I found my bike and set off down the road towards the swing bridge across the river. As I crossed the bridge, the tracery of high clouds formed a pattern in pink and purple against the darkening sky, and as I cycled up the wooded track to the village, bats flickered above me as they hunted moths in the gloom.