After a week’s holiday, the nights were drawing in rapidly, and I set off for the cubs sett on my bike at 7.30 p.m. in order to make sure that I was in good time. When I got to the wood, I found that there was a steady breeze blowing down the valley across the face of the sett, so I decided that I could try for some close-up video. I had seen enough of where the badgers liked to play and the directions they took to leave the sett to know that I would probably be undetected at a tree about ten yards from the main hole. I quickly crossed the boggy ground in the bottom of the valley, and took my stand, quietly removing the twigs from the trunk of the tree at my back which could betray my movement later.
As I stood leaning against the tree, I could hear the cattle browsing in the water meadow behind me, and the local robin singing his evening song. A blur of wings resolved itself into a small bird which alighted near the base of the tree in front of me, and then industriously moved up the tree examining the bark – a tree-creeper. When it reached a spot about twelve feet up, it flew to another tree and started again from the bottom of the trunk upwards. The low background hum of the wood signalled plenty of pickings for him and other insect-eaters.
The cubs came out fighting. They fell over the edge of the mound outside the hole and rolled in a ball down the slope to the floor of the valley, where they continued to attack each others ears and tails with fierce vigour. Suddenly one broke away and bounded up the valley, pursued by the other until, after a short distance, it whirled at bay and threatened his sibling with lowered head and fangs exposed. A brief parade before each other was ended by a swift pounce and the whirling wrestling match continued.
Mother came to the entrance and stood on the mound watching her offspring, somehow conveying a hint of maternal anxiety. Both cubs bounded up the slope and greeted her, one by climbing onto her back and attempting to chew her ears, and the other by doing a “bum-press” on her side, and then continuing the scrap with the other cub. For a long time, the cubs played with seemingly inexhaustible energy, while mother watched, groomed herself occasionally, and sometimes got scragged by the cubs.
Eventually, she ambled off up the slope from the sett, following a path which lead through a thorn bush near the edge of the wood. The cubs followed, still bouncing, still scrapping. Almost immediately, the other adult emerged and, after a brief scratch, followed them. The wood bordered a grass field in which cattle were grazing, and I wanted to find out where my badgers were headed. Were they going into the field, or travelling up the wood towards the road?
I quietly walked up the floor of the valley, watching the skyline above me and listening for badger sounds. When I came to a barbed wire fence across the valley, I examined the bottom strand closely for badger hairs, and looked for signs of a regular path up the wood, but there were neither. If these badgers did regularly go across the road to Quesse Wood and the other sett, they must go up into the field first. I returned towards the sett, and froze as I heard the snorting and rustling noises of a foraging badger. It was above me at the edge of the wood, silhouetted on the skyline as it rooted in the grass.
I moved on, looking for the others, but one of them must have seen me first, for there was a sudden rush and scamper along the path back to the sett. Back at my original stand, I watched with binoculars as the remaining badger came cautiously down the slope towards the bottom of the valley along which I had walked just a few minutes before. It was one of the adults, and from the broad head, I took it to be the male.
When he came to my trail, he nosed the ground cautiously, and then an extraordinary change came over him as all of his body hairs stood on end. With a body grotesquely enlarged by the outstretched fur, apparently surrounded by a halo due to the white tips to each hair, he stalked along the valley floor on legs which seemed unnaturally long, a few steps at a time. The hairs on the head remained flat, making it seem small in proportion to the body, and he glared from side to side, looking for the source of the alien taint upon the ground. He had suddenly changed from an animal which exuded bumbling good nature mixed with caution to one which conveyed menace, and barely suppressed violence. Looking through the binoculars, I felt a rush of adrenalin as the quiet wood for a moment lost its ordinary safe quality and just for a moment seemed to be owned by a being with power and baleful intent, but the feeling disappeared as quickly as it came.
The badger returned to the hole where the others greeted him, and after some reassuring scratchings and groomings, the family again wandered off. I left in the opposite direction, pondering on their astonishing tolerance of my disturbance.