Gone But Never Forgotten

It is with great sadness that Allan Mustoe my dear husband passed away suddenly yet peacefully on Sunday 23rd November.
Thank you for all your support.  Allan was extremely proud of all the reads he achieved.

Badgers are Perplexed at the Russian Bear

News announced this week of the recent Badger Cull costings, showed that each Badger killed was despatched at a cost to the British tax payer of £5,200 per head. Tax payers’ money totally wasted on disenfranchising the countryside of one of its noblest inhabitants. You would think with the government continually rambling on about new austerity measures, the money would have been far better placed obtaining food for our ever increasing number of food banks scattered in and around our country. With winter just around the corner, the demand for this facility has sky rocketed enormously in the last three to four years. 

The G20 meeting in Australia, with President Putin’s fleet of four ships, which include a cruiser, a destroyer, a tug boat and a refueller, poised in international waters North of the Coast of Australia brings it home to one on just how fragile these global meetings have become.  The travesty of Ebola out in Africa will surely be a talking point and so it should be.  Five thousand lives have been lost to this wretched disease so far with no real sign of containment.  A disease which has been inflicted on the African people for no real apparent reason but certainly made worse through the years of conflict, especially Sierra Leone where government monies could have just as easily been put into hospitals and health centre structures in years gone by rather than armaments that have just succeeded in ripping some of these countries apart.  How much easier it would have been right back in March if these facilities had been in place to treat and contain the march of this ongoing disease.  We are in the twenty first century and lessons are still continually not being learnt. Yet another African crisis with a Bob Geldof and Midge Ure Christmas tune.

5000 lives lost is 5000 too many lives lost. This is a huge figure to have lost in such a short space of time, especially when it is quite apparent that swift aid and education could have averted a large portion of this. However, far less media coverage and condemnation has been given to the 4000 lives lost in the conflict of Eastern Ukraine. The Ukraine’s only crime for this misery is wanting independence. The Russian Bear has remained slumbering since the fall of the Berlin wall but his awakening to strengthen the hand of the Ukraine Separatists has been really alarming and does nothing to reinforce a peaceful and stable Europe.  In fact, quite totally the opposite. 

In the 100 year anniversary of the 1914-1918 war you would think that the Russian Bear’s paw along with the rest of the hands of Europe has been burnt enough. 

An interesting interview this week with Jon Snow of Channel 4 News with Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhinaa, two girls from the Pussy Riot pop group who were arrested and imprisoned simply because their views were not entirely in step with the Russian government, reinforces the view that free speech and any real criticism of the Russian government is still a long way off from being the norm.

As if the aforementioned crises have not caused enough devastation and loss of life, this morning we have learnt of yet another barbaric beheading of an aid worker my militants in Syria/Iraq. Peter Kassig, an American, was out in the region aiding refugees when he was brutally murdered. How nice it would be on this centenary year for the Heads of State around the G20 table to draw up plans for the Russian Bear to turn East alongside the American Eagle, the French Cockerel and the British Lions to join together and rid the Middle East of this un stabling disease, Isis, and put an end to this butchering of the innocents and let the Middle East once again enjoy the peace, tranquillity and quality of life that every region has the right to deserve.

Please watch my short film of my Badgers playing and frolicking over a fallen tree on an August Evening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjMrJ3I_XhM&feature=youtube_gdata

Daddy Cool at his playful best.

A Badger’s Remembrance of Slaughter

We have been blessed this weekend with a visit from our son Sam whose weekend break back home from his studying at his university has been most welcome.  However, his sister was unable to join us due to her ever more demanding diary dates but the return of Sam’s banter and his sense of humour has been most uplifting and a constant source of amusement. 

The weather across this part of The Cotswolds has turned colder and wetter.  Autumn is most certainly doing its level best to run into winter. 

My Badgers have gained exceptional condition throughout the summer months and I feel sure they will all be able to withstand the harshest of this winter’s weather which has been forecast.

Not all British Badgers have been as fortunate as the ones that I have been honoured to observe.  The Badger cull has wreaked havoc in the culling zones of Gloucestershire and Somerset where it has been implemented.  For these groups of Badgers who have suffered the full force of Defra’s aggressive, violent, nonsensical attacks, their winter will be nowhere near as reassuring for even the survivors who have witnessed the butchery of their families, the trauma has been shown to last throughout their lifetime and the family groups seldom re-colonise. 

A hundred years have passed since the start of the 1914-1918 Great War. The war that was supposed to end all wars has been marked in a most spectacular fashion. 888,246 ceramic poppies have been planted in the moat surrounding the Tower of London.  A most symbolic tribute to lives lost in a blitzkrieg of carnage that affected large parts of Europe and the rest of the world.  Flanders, Eypes, The Somme, names of places that are totally synonymous to war and death.

As the ice caps on the two Poles start to subside you are seeing countries once again starting to stake their claim on the riches that lay beneath the frozen ocean.  The Russians earlier this year sent out an ice breaker to the North Pole where they launched a small submersible submarine from which they planted the Russian flag at the bottom of the ocean to lay their claims to the riches of oil and gas that they hope will reside there.  Greenland, the United States and the Nordic countries all laying claim also to plunder this wilderness, probably for the first time in history.  The mapping out of this frozen region will be done in a diplomatic, non-confrontational fashion we hope.  We have surely all seen in our history books which have taught us that land grabs and border changes have been the blight of civilization.  But when you see the Russian armour amassing on the Ukrainian border one has to ask one’s self what exactly has been learnt in a Europe that has been ripped apart twice in one century?  Some nations have obviously learnt more than others.  But with all this oil and gas it will no doubt buy more Premiership football clubs and more London fashionable property at the expense of an up till now undisturbed part of the globe, the two Poles.  Let us hope that the extraction of these minerals which will undoubtedly happen have nature’s interest at the very heart of any exploration and extraction.

Please watch my short film of a female Badger busy grooming on an autumn evening. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTrEIK3n4EM&feature=youtube_gdata

Female Badger in a relaxed manner grooming before her evening excursions.

A Badger’s Poetry in Motion

A new found stability of conscience was found at the beginning of the week on the ending of the 2014 Badger Cull.  A gigantic weight has now been lifted from the back of nature and the countryside on the ending of this needless, futile, slaughter.  And once again, the official figures are showing and Defra are saying the quota of Badger deaths have nowhere near been met.  Great news for the British Badger and yet highlighting the total incompetence of the people who set the numbers on this barbaric slaughter. 

The second year of the Badger Cull and the resulting information is the same as last year.  The culling in the cull zones has not generated the number of deaths that had been hoped for.  It should be now quite obvious to Defra and the Ministry of the Environment that the quota of dead Badgers is not being met simply because the countryside as I have said so many times before, is not awash with the black and white beasts, yet the damage done on each of these culling sprees is so very often irreversible.  For the first time this week a poll from one of the broadcasters announced that nine out of ten people are dead against the Badger cull and the total misspend of tax payers monies, and yet the culling goes ahead regardless.  For the time being at least, let us celebrate with the British Badger on the ending of the 2014 Badger cull.

A meeting this week with my old game keeper friend, Nimrod, in which he was pleased to announce that his employer, Lord and Lady Foxton’s Badger sett was doing extremely well and the family’s summer night time excursions Badger watching had been exceptionally enjoyable.  The programme of walling and tree planting to protect the sett had proved to be most advantageous. 

My own Badger sett is also doing exceptionally well.  The behaviour from this week I found to be greatly amusing.  Early in the week the gales were quite severe in this part of The Cotswolds bringing down an abundance of autumn leaves.  The Badger being an animal not to miss out on any opportunity from nature made vast inroads into gathering as many leaves from this autumn harvest as possible.  Dragging them away to their sett with their front paws in a most efficient manner.  The Badger values dryness and comfort almost as much as a full stomach. 

Nights are now turning a lot colder, the remedial effect of this showed itself in the form of a first noticeable frost down in the valley last Wednesday morning.

The Badger’s life is a very wholesome one.  He is the hand that fits so beautifully into nature’s glove.  An animal so at home within our woodland.  The two are sheer poetry. 

After the setbacks of the 2013 and 2014 Badger culls along with the unhelpful remarks from our Princess Royal on how gassing Badgers is the most humane way of dealing with them and the general public being kept pretty much in the dark on the wellbeing of our British Icon, I feel that there is the smallest glint of light through the trees towards the end of the woodland.  The British public are now slowly becoming more aware of the plight of the British Badger and more sympathetic to the Badger cause.  Information is key in any form of preservation and when one sits and looks at both sides of the argument and the weight carrying evidence on both sides I can only honestly come to the conclusion that the Badger culls are unjust, unscientifically proven and the whole thing can only be described as unscientifically proven Badger butchery.

Please watch my short film of Mrs Badger gathering leaves to bed down her sett.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDgAjRBulkw&feature=youtube_gdata

The Woodland Patriarch Will Never Stand Alone

This October weather is so unseasonably mild.  Temperatures that you would normally associate with the middle of May have enveloped this part of The Cotswolds.

My Badgers seem to be getting their fill, their body condition looks superb.  They are in the type of condition that will enable them to withstand the forthcoming winter’s worst. 

The Badger cull has gone on regardless.  A meaningless, pointless exercise that can only result in more impoverished, Badgerless landscapes and will do nothing to reduce the TB in our cattle herds.  An argument that continues to fall on Defra’s deaf ears. 

As I sit up at my Badger sett on constant guard night after night, I watch Daddy Cool and Mrs Cool with their entirety of their family.  A sight that excites and intrigues me with equal measure.  Where deep within the woodland their behavioural antics are filled with respect, caring and loving relationships that seem to thrive on togetherness and the wellbeing of each and every member of the group which is paramount.  I have watched Daddy Cool from the moment his cubs were born, take them this way and that within the woodland in an ever changing programme of protection.  I have witnessed poachers come right to the boundaries of the Badger’s woodland and each time of danger Daddy Cool has gathered his family and withdrew from the situation.  He has marched his family away from the danger by as much as a quarter of a mile in one evening and dug in ferociously by the end of it. 

An unconfrontational patriarch whose presence symbolises the very word wild, for the British Badger is fundamentally wild to his heart and graces and honours any woodland habitat that is lucky enough to host him. 

As I watched Daddy Cool and his entirety of his family saunter amongst the massive beech, oak and ash trees brevetting around for the fallen beech nuts and woodland mushrooms, I am watching nature that has not changed for thousands of years, but the devastating acts of the 2013 and 2014 Badger culls has unleashed demons amongst the British Badgers that in some cases nature will be totally unable to rectify.  The robust, strong hard man of the woodlands needs the kind, tenderness, caring hospitality that he shows to his family and his environment through every heartbeat of his life. 

Please watch my short film of Daddy Cool and his whole family enjoying his wild woodland in the manner that nature intended and when you have watched the film, ask yourself honestly, is raising a gun, setting a snare or laying poison in any way a just measure, backed by government or otherwise to treat a British icon?

My old friend, Daddy Cool and Patriarch of his woodlands will never stand alone. Long live Daddy Cool, Lord Protector of our woodlands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLLpLSAIwcs&feature=youtube_gdata

Daddy Cool with his entire family.

A Badger’s Blood Moon.

The season of autumn now reigns supreme over this part of The Cotswolds.  The season that never ceases to delight me with its beauty.  A transformation of the newly drilled cereal fields and the changing of colours throughout the bushes and trees captivates as if by magic every morning’s and early evening’s differential of colour. A tapestry of beauty unequalled by anything else that I have ever seen outside of nature who seems to be able to trumpet it each passing month.  Throughout all the seasons and changes of the landscapes one thing is always, thank goodness, so very constant, the degree, quality of beauty and richness, so diverse in every detail is always there.  A joy most certainly to behold. 

This week the Badgers up at my Badger sett have thoroughly enjoyed their nights out under the Blood Moon.  The fullness of which, has lit up their woodland wilderness to such a degree, they  could be seen from some distance. Their enjoyment of these evenings I have witnessed once again first hand.  Their community, their loving, caring behaviour for each other keeps me in as much of a trance now as it did thirty years ago.  The Badger truly worships his environment and the environment truly worships the Badger. 

I stayed out with them every evening while the moon lit up their playground for when nights are this light, I always feel very uncomfortable for the Badger.  For nights like these, he is at his most vulnerable to the rifle.  But I am so happy to report there was no blood spilled of my Badger colony on this breath taking, glorious Blood Moon.

The government still goes ahead with the futile, brainless, devastating Badger cull.  Attacking a part of nature and an eco-system that works so scientifically beautifully against all the evidence that the killing of these black and white beasts of nature will do absolutely nothing to eradicate Bovine TB in our cattle herds.  For an animal of such presence to be treated in such a hostile fashion is a crime and in my humble opinion, it is a crime against nature herself.  We must all stand firm and protect the Badgers that we know about, for, once a Badger sett has been destroyed, the Badger seldom returns and that part of our countryside that hosted the great Black and Whites is disfranchised forever. 

The two great diseases filling the news at the moment that does require everyone’s attention is Isis and Ebola.  The prescription for the Isis problem is going to require an international force with boots on the ground.  Air strikes alone cannot possibly dislodge them.  Again, we are months and months behind the curve.  So many lost and ruined lives, all actions have been totally inadequate to contain this rampant disease across the Middle East. 

On the Ebola side of things, the measure for screening at our airports and the Euro Star, St Pancreas station, London, taken by our government this week seems all rather unsettling.  To a layman like myself it seems an absolute non brainer that you must have all the screening done in West Africa before people travel, rather than let people travel from these destinations where Ebola seems most rife.  Travelling on airplanes, trains, cheek by jowle with all other passengers.  It seems to me that if you want an Ebola epidemic we are going about things in just the right way.  Basic Foot and Mouth precautions seem light years more advanced than the procedure put in place to contain something like Ebola.  Quarantine and isolation is the best start of prevention.  Fundamental measures that have been left wanting. 

Scientists worldwide are working around the clock to produce an ever better vaccine for this cursed Ebola, for this is how it will be combatted like all other major diseases.  The world’s best intelligence working together to create a retaliatory vaccine, something that should have been put in place for our own Bovine TB cattle programme because, without the vaccination of our countryside Badgers in oral form or otherwise, means this horrendous Badger cull will have to continue year on year because the denominator laid down by Defra is that killing Badgers is the only alternative to the ongoing Bovine TB problem in our cattle herds.  Vaccination is and always will be the driver that will eradicate Bovine TB in our cattle herds.

Please watch my short film of my Badgers tustling and wrestling, having the time of their lives under a Blood Moon, enjoying their woodland environment to the full.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSss1yBdfPA&feature=youtube_gdata

Badgers playing in their woodland under a Blood Moon

Badgers and Tornados.

My blog last week didn’t happen due to us taking our son Sam to settle him in at his chosen university where he is going to study agriculture and all aspects of land management.  A very exciting time for Sam but a little sad for Jackie and I.  Our daughter left home to go to Kings University London to study medicine two years ago and now with our son flying the nest, it is extremely quiet at home.  The years of them hanging on your every word and listening to your words of advice are now a memory.  The pangs of any parent being left out of the loop at this particular stage of their life can be quite traumatic.  Will they eat properly? Will they make new friends? Are they going to like it? And will they be safe?  You are only too well aware that your job as the family protector has been somewhat diminished. 

As my wife and I waited for confirmation of him enjoying it or otherwise, time seemed to pass immeasurably slowly until my wife screamed from the kitchen to the sitting room.  “He has put some photos up on Facebook,”  and there he was smiling with new found friends, another degree of confidence and all round, looked a very happy chappie, just like his sister when she started her university.  Jackie and I were really pleased and were now able to relax in our new life of just the two of us.

Politically, the autumn conferences from the Labour Party and the Conservative Party went pretty much in the direction that I would have expected.  Labour in their conference announcing that if they were to win the General Election they would put an end to this cursed Badger Cull nonsense.  While the Conservative Party’s Environment Minister, Liz Truss has said that she would like to re-introduce Fox hunting.  Such a lame, destructive voice which conjures up even more loss to our precious environment. The figures of 40% of the world’s wildlife being lost since 1945 seems to completely evade her. The Coalition Government of the last four years of the Conservatives and the Liberals on the whole have served very well although now, the marriage seems to have irretrievably broken down, with the two parties being at logger heads over almost everything.   But the true saving grace for the Conservatives was the sending of our British Tornados to be alongside the Americans in hitting this Isis menace head on once and for all.  How wonderful it would all be if the whole of our Government were to concentrate on the combatting of the Isis terror rather than needlessly generating and unleashing the Badger Cull terror within our countryside.

The Badger Cull is now half way through its proposed running time and already from the people that know, the killing targets are not being reached.  Hardly surprising, because I have said so many times before, the countryside is not awash with families of Badgers now or ever has been. 

Inhumane, brutal, barbaric actions handed down to one of nature’s total innocents, the British Badger.  Already there has been many horror stories of vicious treatment being metered out to the black and white beast which was also very predictable.  The Badger Cull in the British Isles of 2013 and again this year has diminished the protected status of the species, inevitably the consequences were always going to be thus. 

DEfRA and the previous minister of the Environment, Owen Paterson and now Liz Truss have spoken of going out on a late summer’s night and just popping off the Badgers in a most matter-of-fact childlike, naivity manner.  When in reality those of us who have studied Badgers know that they can pick up scent from two miles away, they can hear a twig crack from three quarters of a mile away and for a stranger to get near a sett to shoot one is nigh on impossible, so they were always going to be shot from range.  Blundering tactics creating and inflicting wounds which in all cases will cause a very slow and lingering death. 

The Coopers who look over my own Badger sett have dismantled their tent and withdrawn from the woodlands for their own comfort and safety.  The weather now is starting to get a lot more autumnal.  As I sit on the edge of the woodland looking out over the autumn brown landscape I see a tractor and seed drill in the distance.  Plumes of dust trailing in his wake.  We have had the driest September since 1910, the Badgers have found foraging these last three weeks difficult.  Daddy Cool, the big old male Badger has led them further and further away from their sett.  They are going outside the safety of his woodland stronghold.  This first autumnal rain that we are enjoying for some time is as welcome to the Badgers as it is to the newly drilled seed for germination. 

Please watch my short film which shows the return of Daddy Cool to the woodland slumping down, yawning and then falling fast asleep after a long night’s foraging. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b3ktqK4O1M&feature=youtube_gdata

A humble, hardworking and total innocent of the senseless slaughter that surrounds him.  Long live the Lord Protector of our woodlands.

Gordon Brown Most Welcome in the Badgers Union

Quite an amazing week.  A referendum that gripped two nations, the Scots and the English.  A campaign driven by the people, constantly fuelled by all sets of media.  Stakes on both sides of the border along with the political parties could have hardly been greater.  The most phonetic time of politics since Edward Heath’s Conservative government joined us up with the EEC in 1973. 

After last weekend’s Yougov polls put Alex Salmond’s Scottish National Party a couple of points ahead of the Unionists, alarm bells rang all around Westminster.  Our party political leaders were stunned into action.  David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband who had all been so lethargic, almost to an outsider nurturing the idea of an independent Scotland, in the eleventh hour saw the error of their sluggish like thinking and all made hastily engagements for early week debates in Scotland to try and halt the Scottish uprising. 

For a short time the Union was evaporating in front of our very eyes.  The most successful union in history was coming to an end. But as the call went out, one man rose like a giant above all others, the name of that man was Gordon Brown.  For me, Gordon Brown without any doubt saved the Union.  His speeches were almost electrifying, like a mid-19^th century stalwart politician, oratory almost equalling the great Winston Churchill, who hammered out his convictions in a most matter of fact, heart felt, respectful, almost humble at times manner.  As the curtain was falling on a three hundred year old union, he had the ability to make people pause and think whilst stood on the very brink.

Friday morning when the final results were announced, 45% of Scots wanting independence from England and 55% still wanting the Union I reflected on just how close the whole thing had come to unravelling.  The referendum has broken seams in an old coat that has been truly well worn.  Seams that has been broken and weakened by an almost self-destruct idea of being able to do better, when in reality, England, Scotland and Wales have always put the Great into Great Britain. 

As I sit watching over my Badgers with the full knowledge of the senseless Badger slaughter starting up again in parts of Gloucestershire and Somerset, I thought how nice it would be to have a heavy weight politician of the stature of Gordon Brown speaking up on behalf of the British Badger. 

For twenty years he played second fiddle to Tony Blair.  When he eventually became Prime Minister the party was over.  Tony Blair had slipped out of the back door and left Gordon Brown holding a cake in which he would have to have been the Messiah to satisfy the mouths in which it was to be fed.  Our country was broken by a false economic yearly house price rise which could never realistically cope in paying back the debts that had accumulated on the de-regulation of the banks in the mid-eighties under a Thatcher, Tory Government that started up all day Sunday trading and an endless wallet of plastic cards to quench the insatiable, ever wanting, must have more British appetite.  An economy of madness that Gordon Brown almost single-handedly carried the can for. 

The double act of Gordon Brown and Tony Blair always showed Tony Blair in the limelight and Gordon Brown in the gloom.  But if their posts could be reversed and now you had Gordon Brown as peace envoy in the Middle East you would now have a voice of conviction and integrity, but one can never have it all.  And I for one will always be grateful for the rousing Union speeches of Gordon Brown.  Three cheers for Gordon Brown for saving the Union.

My Badgers came up from deep in the woodland to Daddy Cool’s favourite spot on the Northern boundary.  The Throne of Daddy Cool.  How very fitting for the most important vote in our Union’s history for over three hundred years.

Please watch my short film of Daddy Cool in the most beloved spot of his woodland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAYjPkjxY3s

Daddy Cool checking out his Throne.

Badgers, Scots and Stonehenge

Last week’s blog didn’t happen due to my daughter’s 21^st birthday. It was a very busy but jolly affair starting off with Sophie being collected from the local station, joined later that evening by her two medical student friends.  Supper soon ensued with lots of lively chat which went on late into the evening. Saturday was spent with Sophie showing them some local attractions, one being Sudeley Castle at Winchcombe which was greatly admired by her two friends.

My wife Jackie had purchased a Maison Blanc birthday cake which always seems to fit the birthday occasion exceedingly well.  That evening Sophie opened all of her presents and cards.  We all then sat around the dining table where we were presented with a sumptuous meal cooked by Jackie. We raised several glasses of champagne in celebration of my daughter’s 21^st and congratulating her on her forthcoming 3^rd year at Medical School.  Also, celebrating my son’s passing of his driving test and his imminent start at the Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester.  Sunday was a little more sedate with all of the girls going off on a long walk and then just relaxing in the garden before we said a goodbye to Sophie’s two friends and taking Sophie back to the station.  It was a most successful and enjoyable weekend.

The week previous had seen a lot of comings and goings over the Cotswold airways.  American fighter jets and British jets going through their manoeuvres.  Practicing the protocol of protecting the most powerful man on earth, President Obama, on his arrival on Air Force One at Royal Air Force Base Fairford the evening ahead of the NATO summit which was being held at the Celtic Manor, Newport, Wales.    

World disturbance is on a monumental scale.  NATO seems to have its hands full like never before.  Crisis in Ukraine where cease fires barely last for hours, let alone days.  Isis running amok, threatening the whole stability throughout the Middle East.  Ebola epidemic in Africa that could create losses of biblical proportions.  In amongst all this world turmoil this government still seems to be pressing on with the 2014 Badger Cull. 

Last Sunday morning, President Obama stopped off at Stonehenge for a walk round our own world heritage site.  There he posed with a local family. A magical moment for this family and a very down to earth glimpse of a President who seems to be most humanitarian. And to think Badgers were roaming this island long before these stones were put into place. 

The news and media has been full of the forthcoming referendum of Scotland’s independence.  A decision once taken that cannot readily be reversed.  A coming together of two Nations that has lasted for over three hundred years.  A coming together of two Nations to form free trade, the first truly international free trade the world had ever known, when Britannia ruled the waves. This small island sending Sail Ships out to all the continents of the world.  An achievement never equalled in history. 

The Canadian President this week reported that they think they have found one of Franklin’s two ships, either the HMS Erebus or HMS Terror, the ill-fated expedition which left British shores in 1845 searching for the fabled North West Passage.

The Union with Scotland Act was passed in 1706 and the United Kingdom was formed in January 1707.The Scots joined from a very weak economic base. Scotland however then prospered in all the new found trade routes and the Scotland we know and love today was founded on the back of this partnership.  A partnership built on trust, fairness and above all trade.  When I stand back and look at today’s kaleidoscope of diverse, technological and ever changing trade I cannot help but come to the conclusion that if Scotland does go independent, it will without doubt be the worse decision it has made in over three hundred years. 

The Coopers have been practicing their Badger cage trick up at my Badger sett.  The plans put in place last year to evacuate the sett if needs must were once again sanctioned this week by my friends in Hereford.  The proposed Badger cull is unjust and is an attack on the innocence of wildlife and with everything else going on worldwide that needs the attention of our best minds, the futile continuation of this hair-brained scheme to rid our cattle herds of TB to me is madness beyond belief.

Once again, this part of The Cotswolds Badger population is on red alert.  Operation Mozart’s Magic Flute is on standby, Who Dares Wins.

Please watch my short film of a group of Badgers contemplating the end of summer as the curtain slowly raises for the onset of autumn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31xORgl7NlQ&feature=youtube_gdata

Badgers contemplating the end of summer.

Strategy and A Badger’s Family Circle

Failure is always disappointing, but the Badger Trust losing its legal challenge of the Badger Cull to the government was particularly galling because, it appears to me now that culling without independent monitors will create killing of the lowest denominator.  As many as you can for as cheap as you can type package.

This week, I have put up my longest ever video film on YouTube, a full seven minutes. Normally my weekly short films are a minute to a minute and a half in length, (another seven minutes of boredom some people might think,) however, today I chose to put up a longer film simply to show my Badgers in a random state of work, rest and play.  With a longer duration time you can clearly see in the seven minutes what I have observed through my lifetime.  The Badger stands for community, he stands for family and above all, he stands for integrity.  For in the case of the Badger, what you see is what you get.  A caring companion, a great parent and a stalwart defender. 

A lot of Badgers, I’m very sad to say, will now die after this high court ruling, but we must all do what we can to help and support one of the most important icons to this island’s countryside.

The Badger is the toughest, strongest and the most able animal within these shores to withstand this oncoming onslaught, but even this great hard character of the woodlands can only realistically take so much.  Persecution to the Badger has come in many forms and taken on many guises.  But now, his fight is with the establishment.  A body that has not listened to science and has not reasoned with positive debate. 

Way back in the seventies a Badger sett I looked over as a child was destroyed in the most savage, barbaric and brutal fashion.  Badger baiters I despise with a passion.  There was one survivor, a little runt of a Badger.  He had been severely mauled and yet, he managed to pull through and when he was strong enough he was taken from that place of carnage and placed in another Badger sett where the inhabitants welcomed and looked after him. There he flourished and his descendants still thrive to this very day.   

But as I watch his descendants play and frolic throughout the woodland I think back to that August day all those years ago and the scene I encountered as I entered that particular parcel of woodland.  Badgers strewn around, ripped to pieces.  Three dead baiting dogs just been dumped underneath the bushes, but the overriding memory by far was the old male Badger who I had nicknamed all those years ago as Daddy Cool.  His injuries were probably the most catastrophic.  His head, shoulders and hind quarters had been ripped so savagely that he was totally unrecognizable to the old Badger who I once knew and loved.    His stance and his injuries and his positioning to the sett was that of one who had defended and fought to the bitter end. 

A creation of nature so at one within the woodland they occupy, it seems to me their mere existence should be applauded and marvelled, but instead we look to destroy and do our level best to rearrange an eco-system that works scientifically beautifully.

The sun is shining here in The Cotswolds.  My son Sam along with two of his friends and his mother Jackie have just done their ice bucket challenges.  As their exuberant screams of ecstasy and sudden shock ring out across The Cotswold hills I cannot help but think, surely the Government would have much better things to occupy its so called academic minds?  President Obama dropped the bombshell that the United States has got no specific strategy to deal with Isis and other Islamic fundamentalist groups which run through Syria, Iraq and the whole of the Middle East.  You are seeing Russian tanks roll into a sovereign Ukraine and the memorabilia of the start of the 1914 1918 war is ever constant in our media.  With all this global turmoil going on, the world being at its most fragile state since 1945, the United Kingdom being put on Severe Alert for terrorism, you would honestly think that this coalition government of ours would have more pressing business affairs at home and abroad rather than wage war once again on our old ‘mind my own business’ icon, the British Badger.

This government’s best laid strategy on combatting Bovine TB lay in the restriction of cattle movements and a countrywide oral vaccination programme for the Badger.  The latter will involve, tenacity, ingenuity and a mind-set akin to the Badger.  A hands-on, a must-do and no job too big approach.

Please watch my short but longer than normal video of my Badgers. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cauzsq-MkHw&feature=youtube_gdata

A Badger's Community

A Badger’s Royal Icing

The end of this August has been as cold as any that I can remember.  Last week I saw the remnants of a light frost down in the valley, alongside the river.  It was hard to believe that it was only the 21^st August. 

The Coopers will soon be vacating the woodland.  Their summer time stake out surveillance of my Badger sett is starting to get too uncomfortable and hardly safe for people of their age, much to their annoyance.  The cold nights have come around much earlier.  The Badgers on the other hand seem to be really enjoying the cooler nights.  Such a marked contrast from the hot, sticky, sultry summer nights of just three weeks ago. 

There is something always so very fascinating about the changing of the seasons.  As many times as I have experienced each season slipping out of one and effortlessly easing into another, I have never ever seen the same season twice.  Always a differential.  Always a different starting date to the season that’s about to begin and the season that has just ended.  Nature’s way of always keeping us guessing, always unpredictable, which brings me nicely around to the behaviour of my Badgers.

A week or so ago, Daddy Cool moved his family from the Northern boundary on the outskirts of the woodland back deep inside to his stomping grounds much favoured for the middle of winter.  His actions however, had left me quite bemused.  Surely his weather predictions couldn’t be more accurate than Liam Dutton’s of Channel 4 News?  The weather, although cold for the end of August, but still nowhere near cold enough for him to be thinking of battening down the hatches deep inside the woodland ready for the onslaught of winter. 

The woodland is still in full canopy, the leaves not yet starting to turn and yet the Badgers’ behaviour strikes me as being quite odd. 

On Thursday night as I drove up to my house from work I saw a Land Rover parked outside my house which I instantly recognized as Nimrod’s, a Keeper friend of mine for many years.  I parked up just behind it and went inside the house through the back door into the kitchen where I found Jackie, my wife and Nimrod deep in conversation.  On entering the kitchen, Nimrod wasted no time in explaining to me the reason for him calling round.  There were rustlers and poachers in this vicinity of The Cotswolds.  He then went on to tell me about six fat lambs that he had had stolen from the Foxton Estate and two bullocks that had been miraculously exempt from the whole ordeal due mainly to the amount of bellowing they had created while the thieves were trying to load them.  Jackie piped up with “They’ve informed the police and everyone has been told to remain vigilante.” Immediately my thoughts were elsewhere and Daddy Cool’s odd behaviour now started to make sense.  “That’s why Daddy Cool has moved his family back deep inside the woodland, he had sensed that the poachers were getting too close,” I thought to myself.

“Why are you so silent?” asked Nimrod, “Just sat there looking into space, are you interested or not?”

“Oh I am very interested and I think I know where they will turn up next.  The herd of Roe deer between here and Beech Wyn have been targeted.”

“What makes you so sure?” asked Nimrod.

“The recent behaviour of one so close tells me, I just know the Roe deer will be the poachers’ next prize.  What are you doing tonight Nimrod?”

“Oh no Allan, no Allan, these nightly excursions with you always end the same, I am always explaining to the police and Lord Foxton and trying to justify the carnage you leave in your wake in the best possible interest of all concerned.”

I asked him again, “are you coming or not?”

“Ok, I will. About what time?

“7pm,” I replied. Nimrod reluctantly nodded and off he went.  

“Jackie, I want you to ring Mr and Mrs Cooper and invite them over here for the evening, I cannot have them up in the woods tonight.”

“Oh thanks Allan, what’s the reason I am asking them over?”

“I don’t know Jackie, you’ll think of something, you always do,” and giving her a quick kiss on the cheek I went out up to the garden shed where I found a couple of half empty tins of white gloss paint.  “This will do nicely,” I thought. 

Nimrod turned up at 7pm on the dot. “Which vehicle are we travelling in?” asked Nimrod.

“Shanks pony,” I replied.  “You carry this,” and I handed him one of the tins of gloss, “and I’ll carry this one.”

“What the hell is this for?” asked Nimrod knowing that there were going to be more explanations afoot from this evening’s escapades.

“All will be revealed if and when we see anything.”  Nimrod sighed.

As we walked along the sides of the hedges, through the fields of freshly combined cereal, the swathes of straw in gun barrel straight lines left from the combines, we both reminisced of summer nights passed when we played with all the other village kids on the flat 8 bales that had been left by the sledges on the back of the balers.  The dens we would all build and the Mr Wolf games we would all play. Magical days seemingly gone forever now with the ghost-like Cotswold villages mainly occupied by weekend second home city dwellers.  Capitalism had reached the villages many years previous with local people unable to buy the homes of their birth place and ever increasingly larger farm machinery making more and more farm labourers redundant. 

When we arrived nearer to Beech Wyn, the course of action was explained.  Nimrod was to go up to the Northern side of the woodland and I was to be down on the Southern side of the woodland.  There the vantage points were thus so that a wide angle of countryside could be surveyed.  Off Nimrod went and off I went.  I soon found a good hiding place in the bottom of a couple of Hawthorn trees.  Listening to the birds who soon gave way to the night time excursions of the bats.  The sun seems to go down much faster once the middle of August has been past.  The hours passed slowly and soon we were well into the night.  The time now was about 12:45 when my phone rang.  It was Nimrod.  “I can see lights,” he said quietly.  I told Nimrod I was on my way.  I left my position and sneaked up the side of the woodland towards Nimrod.  After about fifteen minutes I could hear, “psst psst.”  I looked over in the direction it came from and there was Nimrod standing in the throne of Daddy Cool’s, an old Ash stom.  I got up in there with him.  I too could now see the lights.  “That’s heavy duty torches,” I whispered to Nimrod. 

“I know,” he replied

“But where’s their vehicle?” I asked. 

“They stopped it down by the river.  Shall we start shouting now?” 

“No,” I replied, “We’ve got to get to their vehicle.”  The torches were getting nearer. 

“We’ve got to watch this,” said Nimrod rather nervously, “We don’t want to get ourselves shot.  With those torches you can guarantee they’ve either got rifles or crossbows.”

“I know.” I agreed.  The torches were now getting ever nearer and even from a vast distance some of the trunks of the big Beech trees were being lit up.

“We’re not going to be able to do this,” said Nimrod.  I could see that he was starting to get anxious and concerned. 

“Get hold of your paint pot and follow me.”   Out of Daddy Cool’s throne we climbed.  Nimrod followed me closely down through the woodland.  Over fallen trees deeper inside the woodland we went, our progression, although the wood was thick was speedy and soon we were climbing over the fence at the bottom side of the wood into the river meadows.  We ran across the river meadow to the river and then up alongside the river to where Nimrod thought their vehicle was parked.  We were both now completely out of breath and I knew that they must have reached the Northern boundary of Beech Wyn by now.  We then heard a couple of shots from a .22 rifle followed by two or three more. 

“Where’s this blasted vehicle?” I snapped round at Nimrod knowing full well that time was of the essence. If we didn’t do what we had to do soon, more animals would be shot.

“I saw them extinguish their lights around here, or so I thought.”

“Well it will be either a truck or a van, how difficult to see can it be? Look Nimrod, for goodness sake look.”  Nimrod was bent double out of breath.  Just then, seven Roe deer came running out of the wood. They ran through the river meadow at quite a lick and as we turned to watch the running deer we saw the dark shape tucked right tight in by the hedge.  The deer ran straight past, they had no intention of stopping. 

“There it is,” I pointed to the dark shape in the gloom.  We ran up to the vehicle and without hesitation, I prized open the lids of the paint with my penknife.  I started to pour the paint all over the vehicle. Nimrod just stood there. “Quick Nimrod, we haven’t got much time.” Nimrod groaned, and reluctantly picked up his pot and started pouring also. The paint was running all down the sides, all over the bonnet and all over the windscreen.  The vehicle was a black double cab pickup but now resembled a large cake with runny royal icing. I then espied an iron bar in the back.

“Right Nimrod, start shouting and hollering as loud as you can.”  I reached in and picked up the iron bar and started to bang as loud as I could on the side of the vehicle.  In the dead of night, this was a hell of a row.  Then we saw the three torches coming back across the fields from the Northern boundary.  As we watched the torch lights bobbing up and down we knew that the perpetrators were running hell for leather back to their vehicle. 

“Let’s go,” shouted Nimrod.

“Ring the police and tell them that you have stopped some poachers and their vehicle is covered in white gloss paint.  From here they will be going up through Stow on the Wold.”

“What are you doing?” asked Nimrod.

“I will see you at the weekend, thanks Nimrod.”

As I jogged back down the river, I had one more thing to do before I headed home. “I must check on my Badgers.” I thought.

Please watch my short film of my Badgers playing on a log deep inside the woodland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVvpwH9gf4w&feature=youtube_gdata

Roses, Badgers and Life’s Expectations.

Another week in which the combines have continued on their phonetic devouring of the Cotswold’s cereals.  The fields of gold now much diminished from their harvest colour resembling now an autumn look of a sombre brown left from the plough and discs.

My wife has had her last week of her summer holiday in which she was blessed with a visit from her sister and niece, a happy reminiscence was had by all. The next day Jackie was surprised with a delivery of a beautiful bouquet of white roses gifted from her sister and niece. A most thoughtful and generous act.  Like so many things in life, the totally unexpected can create the most joy. 

My daughter has brought a doctor friend down from London for the weekend, and as we sat around the dining table having supper last night listening to the light hearted conversations, my son Sam talking of his imminent admission into the Royal Agriculture University Cirencester, Sophie referring back to some of her experiences at her Medical School, Kings College London and her young doctor friend who has just graduated telling us of his experiences of his first week as an F1 doctor at his hospital, I couldn’t help but wonder just how their young experiences differed so very much from my own.  A life full of opportunity and expectation where efforts of work and study are rewarded with lives of fulfilment, usefulness and satisfaction.  All these things come with the hope of a better tomorrow and when you see so much of the world with daggers drawn it has got to be so much more difficult even impossible for the young of these regions, Gaza, Iraq, Libya, Syria and even the Ukraine to seriously contemplate any meaningful future.

A telephone call last week from a couple of my game keeping friends informing me that once again poachers are out and about in this part of The Cotswolds.  Now with a lot of the harvest in there is an openness across The Cotswolds that creates very little cover for the Roe Deer, Fallow Deer, Muntjac, Hares and of course my dear Badgers.  Last week I watched old Daddy Cool gathering straw for Mrs Badger to bed down the sett on a rainy night from a recently harvested field above his woodland.  Along with him in the same field I saw seven Roe Deer and a couple of Muntjacs.  They all looked so exposed out there in the open.  For the people who wished them harm, it really would not be that difficult, so I was thrilled to see last Monday, Daddy Cool bring his whole family back from the now vulnerable Northern boundary to deep inside the woodland, Daddy Cool’s stronghold normally reserved for the winter months. 

Please watch my short film of Daddy Cool’s return to his stronghold deep inside the woodland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkI172cP9ig&feature=youtube_gdata

A Badger’s Iron Curtain

This last few days has seen the harvest almost grind to a halt.  Rain has lashed parts of The Cotswolds and the phonetic activity of a week ago of combines being chased by corn trailers in turn being chased by bailers in turn being chased by discs and ploughs has now left just the discs charging over The Cotswold brash, turning the soil leaving it more acceptable to the autumn’s drilling.  The countryside now, much of the flamboyant colour of the spring, summer months has now been replaced to somewhat an autumn scene.

One evening, mid-week I was startled with some urgent knocking on the front door and it was some friends that thought we might be able to help with a severely injured Kestrel.  On closer examination of the bird, its injuries had left it almost lifeless.  The following day the Kestrel quietly passed away.  Always exceptionally sad to see a bird of such beauty come to such an undignified end.

However, the good news of the week was, my daughter Sophie tore herself away from London and had a nice quiet week here in The Cotswolds, where she shopped in Cheltenham town with her mother, and baked various goodies with an enthusiasm akin to Mary Berry.

Other news this week I found quite amazing how in the aftermath of the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner MH317 in amongst international indignation, the Russians decided to retaliate with the banning of all EU, American and Australian dairy products.  This tit for tat behaviour almost cheapens the lives of all those souls that were lost on that particular aircraft.  An act of such a monstrous nature and brutality has been counter balanced by the injustice of the impoverishment of the Russian people and to the detriment of worldwide agriculture also resulting once again in the fall of the Iron Curtain coming down between Russia and the rest of Europe.  Very sad days ahead I fear.

All the hoo ha and hullabaloo of BTB and the Badger cull of last year 2013, almost pales into insignificance by such a potential devastating act to bring world trade into the arena of annexation is simply politics of a school boy yard mentality.  Little wonder that the world seems more chaotic now than it has done in the last forty years.

To see the devastation and destruction of the biggest open air prison in the world, Gaza, it is starting to resemble the ghettos of Warsaw under Nazi occupation.  The ghettos that the world turned their backs on, including our own Winston Churchill, although, in his case you could argue that he already had enough on his plate.  Disproportionate bombing beyond belief, and the behaviour is in response to the three thousand seven hundred missiles plus that have been launched into Israel from the Palestinian side.  When you see the pathetic retaliation by Hamas to end the blockade that has been going on for years, to try and stop the ever encroaching settlements you cannot help but think, when this is all done and dusted, Hamas could start up a thriving export business an outdoor firework regalia, because the rockets you see being fired from them I’m sure that we have all seen something similar on any outdoor firework extravaganza, especially our own Guy Fawkes on November 5^th. 

The ever increasing march of Isis causing mayhem throughout Iraq.  The mayhem in Libya, even Egypt, the brokers between the Israelis and the Palestinians.  Them themselves, swept into power on a Coup displacing the legitimate elected Muslim brotherhood.  The whole thing doesn’t actually fill one with any confidence on any meaningful lasting peace in the region.

President Obama has at last decided to take the bull by the horns and try and stop this march of the fanatics albeit six months too late.  But any move to try and save and stop the genocide of one of the oldest peoples, The Yazidiz, in the region has got to be welcomed and applauded. 

It seems to me the whole business of these regime changes, i.e. Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Colonel Gadhafi of Libya, Mubarak of Egypt and Assad of Syria has caused more devastation, more loss of life and has totally succeeded in destabilising and creating vacuums for power which otherwise would not have existed.

The tough leaders of the Middle East who seemed to keep some kind of order and quality of life for the masses has now gone and there has barely been a day of normality since. 

On a lighter note, my Badger sett is doing extremely well.  The cubs now are almost the size of their parents.  The iron curtain that came down around them with the deployment of Mozart’s Magic Flute has served them well.  Long may it continue.

Please watch my short film of Mrs Badger bedding down her sett in the pouring rain with the straw Daddy Cool has hauled in from the harvested field.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcgWyrJrC1w&feature=youtube_gdata

Mother Badger starting to bed down her sett with freshly hauled barley straw,

Commonwealth Games, A Reminder To Humanity

The harvest is in full swing right across the whole of The Cotswolds.  I watch from a distance within the woodland the Badgers, as they in turn watch the combines rip through the fields of gold.  The cereal fields that have given cover to nature’s bounty of new life are now laid bare once again after the passing of these gigantic, noisy machines. 

Always fascinating to me how nature’s timing of the harvest coincides quite beautifully with the growth and strength of all those beings that took protection by it.  The Leverettes are now as big as their parents and can run as fast as the quickest of their relatives.  The Roe Deer fawns and the Fallow Deer fawns, the Muntjacs are now big enough and strong enough to easily outrun their predators, but always so pleasing to see them take cover in the woodlands as the combines relentlessly churn through the cereal fields acre upon acre.

The excitement of seeing these monstrous machines excites me as much now as when I was a child.  The busyness, the toing and froing of the tractors pulling the trailers full of grain.  The augers as they swing out from the side of the combines in a robotic, precise manner.  Not seeming to spill a grain as they load the moving trailers. 

The tolerances of todays’ technology never ceases to amaze and the whole theatrical experience when observed almost resembles Thunderbirds on speed. 

The Badgers are still doing exceptionally well.  The Coopers still delight in their part of the Badgers protection programme. 

Liz Truss, our Environmental Secretary, has announced that she doesn’t intend to roll out a gassing programme in any forthcoming Badger cull proposals, saying that she favours shooting.  A small step in the right direction I feel.  Although, any movement in the slaying of Badgers is a step backwards in our whole eco system.  Especially after hearing the news this week of a BTB outbreak in Cumbria that can be directly linked to cattle movements as my blog stated on Sunday June 9^th 2013 titled, “George Would Have Told Them to Keep Dodging the Lead.”

As the commemorations go on across the length and breadth of the land on the anniversary of the start of the 1914 1918 war, the Great War supposedly to end all wars, the excitement of the Commonwealth Games really brings home to me just how great the Great War was.  Nearly half the globe in conflict leaving a world in its wake consigning the mis-treatment of women and the underclass workforce in the annals of history.  Never before has the human race seen such vast change in such a minute window of time. 

A 50^th birthday party and 20 years wedding anniversary brought a very satisfying afternoon’s hospitality.  A chance to see people from the same village and to catch up on bits and pieces of gossip and to generally be enlightened by other people’s lives.  So diverse, so different to the conversations to be had in the villages forty years previous. 

Changes are constant, progress is forever in evolution, but I feel the real progress and change in evolution is always in the eye of the beholder, because so often the benefits to a minority are at extreme discord with the majority. 

The fundamental issues that were surely learnt from the 1914 1918 war and were shortly mirrored in the 1940 1945 war tells us that peace and harmony can only emulate from humanity and equality, two ingredients that are so conspicuous by their absence in the Middle East today. 

Please watch my amusing short film of my Badgers who epitomise equality and humanity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwSIKKR5ZXE

Dr. Kissinger, a Badger and Nelson Mandela.

The last week has seen the sun bake this part of The Cotswolds.  Long, hot sunny days.  The type of days that remind me of my own childhood. Summer holidays filled with fun, excitement and adventure accompanied with sunshine and the truest of blue skies.  It is funny  how you remember the hot, balmy sunny days and all the lovely adventures, but I feel sure, if one is honest there were wet miserable days and some totally lack lustre days just as much then as there are today.

Disappointing news for me this week, the British Veterinary Association (BVA) will support a second year of pilot Badger culls in England.  You would think the amount of evidence around now on the true transmittance of Bovine TB to even contemplate another years’ Badger cull would be totally out of the question.  Like so many things in life the right course of action always seems to be the most difficult for our Politicians to follow.  They seem to have a total unwillingness to comprehend the futility of a lot of their actions. 

News yesterday that a 1,000 lives have now been lost on the Gaza Strip.  The Israeli land offensive has caused mayhem beyond belief.  Hospitals bombed, schools bombed and while these atrocities were being played out for the whole world to judge for themselves, our own Middle East Peace Envoy, Tony Blair was back for a party in London. 

This particular Middle East problem has been going on for 47 years.  I remember as a child listening to the great American Nobel Peace Prize winner, the 56^th Secretary of State sworn in on September 22^nd 1973, the great Dr.Henry Kissinger, when greatness was marked by achievement and intelligence and an ability to grasp both sides of an argument and do your damndest to get an equilibrium respected by all parties across the Middle East. 

The problems he faced then have manifested themselves many times since but his initial ideas of trying to forge a peace across the Middle East is probably on hind sight the best chance the people of the region have had in the last 47 years.  Until the Palestinians are treated as equals, peace and harmony will never reside there. 

Hamas has been democratically elected and should be sat down with and talked to in a matter of state fashion.  To continually brand them as ‘Terrorists’ and the ‘Bad Guys’ in all of this, I fear, will no longer wash. 

With a 1,000 Palestinians dead, the propaganda war is being won on an hour by hour basis. 

The Israeli existence has obviously got to be recognized and respected by all Arabs but this sledge hammer to crack a nut approach is quite simply wrong. 

Nelson Mandela was a terrorist to some and a freedom fighter to others, but apartheid was just plainly wrong. 

The comparisons from this I bring back to my own small natural world.  The nature I see on a day on day basis, people not wanting to look at the facts to go that extra mile to get it right.  The easy option is so very often the wrong option.  Complex issues need the best diplomatic, political minds.  Minds that look outside of petty argument, minds of candour, progress, integrity and above all fairness.  And my advice to the Middle East Peace Envoy, Tony Blair and the rest of his shower looking over this apocalypse known as the Middle East should take a few leaves out of the book of the great Dr.Henry Kissinger and one of the icons of the 20^th Century, the great Nelson Mandela.  And let us just hope our Secretary of the Environment, Liz Truss has got just a few of these qualities and will see the light before rolling out another futile, mindless, barbaric, savage onslaught on our own British icon, the Badger.

My Badgers in this part of The Cotswolds have had a very hot week and have had to go further afield for their diet of slugs and snails.  The hotter and drier the ground gets, the more ground they have to cover to fill their stomachs.  The way they have chosen to keep cool is to dig in fresh setts along old windy 300 year old Cotswold stone walls. The tenacity and ingenious way they set about combatting the things in life that can cause them discomfort is a lesson to us all.  The Badger is a doer, go out and getter who asks nothing a part from its own health and strength to do whatever he has to, to keep his family safe and as comfortable as possible. The Diplomat Statesman Lord Protector of the woodlands. 

Please watch my short film of a Squirrel, a Badger and a Mouse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6VATtMQWmQ&feature=youtube_gdata

Guitar Riff and Badgers Mix.

The weather across The Cotswolds this past week has been hot, close, humid and pretty uncomfortable for a lot of nature’s life.

The Coopers watch over the Badgers religiously.  Operation Mozart’s Magic Flute, the Badger protection programme is still very much in force ready for evasive action at a minutes notice.  The Coopers’ enthusiasm and downright professionalism never ceases to amaze me from ones who appear to be quite frail and old but then, looks can be so very deceiving. 

The awful news of the passenger jet being shot down over the Ukraine this week. Total innocents, men, women and children being snuffed out in an instant, as they were on their way to their own individual destinations.  One has to ask, “How on earth can such sophisticated hardware be in the hands of people who are capable of such an act, accident or otherwise in this day and age?”  In a so called, technology full proof age, atrocities of such magnitude should never happen. 

Many years ago, my small claim to fame, I managed to beat the Palestinian’s Women’s Table Tennis Champion. Something I have dined out on every year since.  It happened in the mid -eighties, she was a very pretty girl and extremely intelligent.  She talked about her childhood growing up in the Gaza Strip.  As she talked I was captivated and mesmerised by the accuracy of detail down to the humiliating distribution of the water supply and the day to day hardships of average people trying to go about their business and eke out some kind of meaning and purpose in the wretchedness of life of all Palestinians on the Gaza Strip.  That was then, and now as we turn on our television sets and we see the Israelis tanks rolling into Gaza on the start of their ground offensive, I have to ask just how far our world’s top diplomacy teams have got?  And the answer put quite simply doesn’t appear to be anywhere at all.  Lives are still being wasted in the same fashion now as they were forty years ago. 

Our own Owen Paterson has lost his job as the Minister of the Environment.  Quite pleasing to see a woman, Liz Truss take charge of what has always been a delicate and matter of fact post.  Pleasing in as much as you would think a touch of femininity in to all environmental affairs can only be advantageous in knocking off a few rough edges of policy in a maternal fashion rather than an arrogant, scattergun approach to our ecological day to day encounters.  I thought instantly of our particular Badger problem.  Will the Badger cull roll out be halted? How could a woman give the order to shoot and gas animals of such breath taking beauty?

The facts of their innocence scientifically and otherwise are there for all to see.  A pity her predecessor did not take on board a little more of the scientific facts.  And as we lean more of Liz Truss her background in oil exploration does not bode well I fear for British Nature in general. 

Our own Dr. Brian May has called for a meeting as soon as possible with Liz Truss to discuss concerns over the proposed Badger cull. 

My advice to Dr. May is to take his guitar and a Badger along to this meeting with a riff of Brian May’s choice to set the perfect ambience and the visual of the ‘eye candy’ Badger to set the type of mood, that anyone harming in anyway shape or form our British Icon would automatically receive a Jail term handed down by our all new shiny Secretary of State for the Environment.

Just a thought Brian. See what you can do.

Please watch my short film of Badgers in a heatwave.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT5oQv85TTc&feature=youtube_gdata

Badgers and Pub Teams

As I watch the hedgehogs out across my lawn, the summer nights have become very hot and sultry.  Their walk looks almost laborious as they mooch about looking for slugs and snails.  In contrast, the bats overhead look so cool as they glide, twisting and turning effortlessly through the summer nights picking off a myriad of moths and insects in these sultry summer nights. 

The Badgers appear from their sett looking tired and relaxed, almost sleepy.  And when you see the British Badger in his natural habitat, so at home in his surroundings, there can be few animals on earth that look more cute, cuddly and just downright adorable.  

The Badger cull will, I fear, soon be upon us once again despite overwhelming scientific evidence which states time and time again that the Badger cull is futile and totally pointless and does not realise any of the objectives in stemming BTB in our cattle herds, which makes the destruction of these animals criminally insane.

As we get to the finale of the 2014 World Cup Final you’ve seen billions of pounds poured in to a tiny part of Brazil leaving the Brazilian government 11 billion in debt to show case to the world the most expensive pub team on record for their performance was mediocrity on every level.  But to be fair, so were many of the other teams that were present.  None more so than our own England. A working class sport light years out of the reach for affordability of the dirt poor, working class people that represent 98% of the country which hosted it.  A world cup full of Vidal Sassoon hair styles and bodies covered in tattoos.  The cost of the hair styles and tattoos, the hair lacquers and gels would go a long way to alleviating the problems of six and a half million homeless people on the streets of Brazil. It would go some way to ending the sniffing of glue from plastic coca cola bottles from kids as young as five and six years of age. 

The pundits on all media fronts spouting nonsense of the 'best world cup ever.'  What football games have they been watching?  What pieces of heart stopping skill have they witnessed?  I have watched the same games and so have my friends and the conclusion from the people I have spoken to is of cataclysmic disappointment. 

We seem to live in a world where the irreplaceable wonders and beauty of nature are merely played lip service to.  The deprivation and destruction of it goes on hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month and year on year.  Depletion of world species and wild habitats find it harder and harder to gain favour with the world media.  May be our beautiful game should go the the same way so we wouldn't have to endure all of this false hype and nonsense along with  these vain, egotistical, moderately talented young men.

The great names of the past that defied description, Pele, Eusébio da Silva Ferreira, Johan Cruyff, Diego Maradonna, Alfredo Di Stefano and our own Gordon Banks who seemed to play for the pride of their shirts and you could not help but feel sure they would have played for their respective countries for free, for the honour of representing them.  Something has fundamentally changed within our beautiful game.  The Premiership full of overseas players, our big clubs in overseas ownership and the absurd roles played out by the sponsors.  Little wonder our National team on a good day would struggle beating Cheltenham Town. 

And my advice to all the pundits who watch this average play week on week and feel that they have to dramatise and scale up to the eighth degree each action of this mediocrity,  to justify their gravy train existence is to surely commentate accurately and honestly on what we all see rather than the sheepish nature of what you want to see.

As I got to the end of my football rant, I received a phone call from Tony Francis who used to present some years ago a favourite programme of mine, Heart of the Country.  This was obviously the cue to bring my football rant to an end..

Please watch my short film of the Badgers up at their sett getting ready for the final, Argentina versus Germany.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqeOk7Eowew

Close Encounter of the Little Owl Kind.

About three weeks ago a Little Owl was brought to us from a lady in the village. It was a very young owl that had got separated from its parents and was struggling with life generally.  The Little Owl was dropped off in a most fetching round little wicker cage and altogether the package was of total cuteness.  After giving the Little Owl a couple of hours in the woodland at the bottom of the garden to get used to the breeze blowing gently through the trees and the sounds of all the other birds that were now his neighbours, the time was right we thought to get the little mite something to eat. 

In the shed at the bottom of the garden we keep a freezer and inside the freezer there is always a box of day old chicks that we buy from the falconry centre.  Just the thing for such an occasion as this.  We had taken a couple of chicks from the freezer on the arrival of the Little Owl and on these warm summer nights a couple of hours is all that is needed to thaw them out. 

Jackie and I were soon at the bottom of the garden in the woodland peering into the basket where two wide eyes were peering back at us. 

I took one of the chicks from the bowl and broke its yolk sac, the last thing the Little Owl needed was a splattering of that, gamming up its very young, downy feathers.  The Little Owl didn’t appear to be more than two to three weeks old. 

As I pulled the chick into mouth size pieces it was becoming ever clearer that this Little Owl’s bright yellow eyes had seen enough of this world and would soon be shutting them for the next. 

I put my hand into the wicker basket and picked him up, a frightened and thin chested owlet.  As I tried to open his beak my wife Jackie stood ready with the leg of the day old chick.  After a few minutes the beak was opened and Jackie’s first morsel was quickly popped inside the hooked beak.  To our delight the beak clamped onto his first helping. There he sat with the phalanx protruding from the side of his beak. As Jackie stood there she seemed to think the state in which the owl was in was quite unacceptable.  She put out her fingers and slightly tugged at the phalanx as if she wanted it back.  The owlet thought otherwise and with one gulp much to our surprise and amusement the whole leg was soon devoured. Jackie put forward more bite sized treats which the owlet was finding more and more to its liking.  After fifteen minutes or so the whole chick had been consumed with relish.  The owl was now looking extremely satisfied and Jackie’s behaviour, like on all these occasions was more and more excitable.  The Little Owl now stood a chance and the following morning, just like a kid on Christmas morning Jackie was the first at the bottom of the garden beneath the Beech and Cherry trees shouting back at the house that the Little Owl’s progress was most satisfactory.

In the days that followed the owlet got stronger and his little wicker basket was no longer conducive to the wellbeing of the owlet.  He was more confident and brash and the visits being paid to the basket by the Barn Owls and Tawny Owls were encouraging him to act in an ever owl like fashion. 

The homing of choice was the large dog kennel with two inch steel mesh sides and a nice pitched wooden roof with a 6 x 4 wooden house on the end of it.  We placed in the dog kennel four perches along with a bow perch and his little wicker basket we placed in the wooden house with the door open so he could come out and flex those precious little wings.  Jackie quickly pointed out that the 2 x 2 inch mesh would not contain him. This is the whole idea of owl and wildlife revival in general.  They stay for as long or as little as they care to.  Freedom is paramount. 

We continued to feed the Little Owl in his open door basket within the kennel.  He was soon flying the length and width of the kennel from one perch to another showing his new found aerial skills which, like always were breathtakingly impressive. 

When you study so much of wildlife closely, things that have evolved at a snail’s pace across tens of thousands of years always strike you and never ceases to enlighten you on the master piece which is nature that in my humble opinion is never equalled. 

As the days and nights rolled on the Little Owl was getting ever more inquisitive until last Monday morning 30^th June, when we went down to see him he had flown the kennel.  The call of the wild had proved to greater magnet for the Little Owl and the joy on such occasions is immeasurable.

That night as we lay in bed there is a round window in the gable of our bedroom which on these hot, balmy nights is always open and as we lay in bed we look out of the round window onto a large Christmas tree that had been planted in the garden reminiscing a fantastic Christmas of bygone years.  Nearing the top thirty foot from the ground, Jackie had noticed a small silhouette of a bird behaving quite peculiarly.

“What on earth is that?” she asked peering through the window, nudging me in the ribs as if to say get up and have a closer look.  I was soon up at the round window looking out across the lawn into the tree.  It was a Little Owl bobbing his head up and down to gain focus.  We like to think his nightly visits to the Christmas tree outside our bedroom window is his way of saying “Thank you” for his care and our hospitality. 

But like every close encounter and experience one has with nature it is you as a person that is left more fulfilled and more thankful for having the opportunity of being so close to it.

The Little Owl in his cute little wicker basket.

PS.  Daddy Cool and his family of badgers go from strength to strength.  Their summer time wrestling antics fill my summer nights with delight and amusement.  Please watch my short film of a wrestling match in action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLOAq7p97nU&feature=youtube_gdata