Last Wednesday evening I arrived home from work to see
the Coopers’ disability buggy parked up in the parking space outside my house,
normally reserved for my Land Rover. I
parked up behind it and walked around to the kitchen door to find in the
kitchen, the Coopers and my wife, Jackie sat around the kitchen table with a
cup of tea in hand in deep discussion. “What’s
wrong now?” was the thought crossing my mind as I went inside. After the briefest of Hellos, the Coopers
were straight in to the reason of them being there.
“The Foxtons have no Badger cubs and they are of the same
opinion as us. That wall you built and
all those blackthorn and hawthorn saplings you planted have upset the Badgers and
have put them off their business of having young. What have you got to say about that?” quizzed
Mrs. Cooper. She then went onto say.
“The walling and planting was done solely on your advice
of protecting the Badger sett and making it more impregnable against Badger
baiters and anyone else who wished them harm.
It seems to the Foxtons and us that all you have managed to do is
frighten them all away.”
“There were only three Badgers in the whole of that
parcel of woodland and I very much doubt that our works on their protection
programme has had any bearing on this particular situation whatsoever.”
Mrs Cooper explained how Antonio and her two children
along with Lord and Lady Foxton have been left bitterly disappointed and their
nightly visits with a handful of peanuts have been an entire waste of time and
so very disheartening.
Mr. and Mrs. Cooper and Jackie were all looking at me
with very inquisitive facial expressions and I knew what was coming. Mrs. Cooper then asked,
“Can we bring them along and show them Daddy Cool’s
family?”
“No!” I snapped. “Daddy
Cool and his family does not exist to anyone outside of this kitchen. Mozart’s Magic Flute, the protection
programme that was brought in almost a year ago has to remain top secret, the
less people that know of their whereabouts, the safer they will remain.”
The Coopers were not happy. There was now silence and an atmosphere. The Coopers then raised themselves off the
kitchen chairs.
“Best be on our way,” they said. “There’s no talking to
him when he is in these moods,” they said to Jackie as they pushed their chairs
tidily under the table. As they were leaving through the kitchen door,
I shouted back to the Coopers. “Over and
around the Foxton’s Badger sett it is ancient Beech woodland, which is only
just starting to come into leaf. The
Foxton’s Badgers could well be waiting for leaf cover before bringing their
cubs out and showing them off to the woodland inhabitants.” The Coopers nodded
their heads unconvinced and then they were gone. Jackie had gone so very quiet and I was now on
the phone to Nimrod, Foxton’s Game Keeper.
“Nimrod,” I asked, “How’s it all going?”
“Not too well to be honest with you Allan. The Foxtons aren’t
pleased, they reckon you’ve upset their Badger sett with all that wall
building.”
“Mmm, I’ve just heard the same from the Coopers” was my
reply. “I will be up at the sett for the next few nights to see for
myself. Are any members of the Foxton
family due to come down to the sett have you heard?”
Nimrod’s reply was slow and intentional. “There is nothing for them to see, there are
no cubs.”
“Right, I’ll be over this evening about 11pm, so keep
away from the sett for the next few nights and I will see you on Saturday.”
“Ok,” replied Nimrod.”
That night I drove along to the Foxton’s Badger sett,
parked the Land Rover up nicely hidden and walked the 500 yards towards the
Badger sett. The rain was now falling
steadily and the stone wall that I had built around the bottom boundary of the
woodland, the planting of the blackthorn and hawthorn all now in leaf, was
looking a joy to behold. It looked to me
as if the work I had done in the winter had always been there. As I walked up the bank on the opposite side
to gain view over the wall I could see that the Badger sett was no longer in
use. The Badgers had left it. My heart sank. As I sat there pondering three Roe deer
pushed their way through the newly planted blackthorn and hawthorn. “You won’t be doing that in five years’ time,”
I thought, “once it has grown thick and impossible to penetrate.” I sat there until 2am and then decided to go
home.
As I walked back
towards the Land Rover I saw 400 yards from the old Badger sett down towards
the base of the wall a Badger. I stopped
stock still. He hadn’t seen me, he was far
too busy foraging about for worms and slugs which this wet weather was bringing
out. He scurried back up the side of the
hedge towards the new wall and then he just seemed to disappear. I walked back slowly, the rain still falling
steadily with no wind, not even a stir of a breeze. “That’s why the Badger did not pick me up,”
my scent was staying within 20 meters of me.
I crawled on my hands and knees the last 40 to 50 yards to where I thought
the Badger had disappeared and then I found it. There was a large hole at the
base of the wall. I stood up slowly and peered over the top of the wall and
there they were. A mother Badger with
two cubs. Fat round, barrelled
like. She had done well. This sett was one hundred meters from where
their old sett was and it was right in the bottom of the new wall. I left them feeling most pleased returning to
the Land Rover and headed for home. I
told Jackie the news first thing Thursday morning, she in turn told the Coopers
who then relayed it to the Foxtons.
Friday evening, as
I got in from work there was a black Range Rover occupying the space for my
Land Rover. I walked around to the
kitchen door and this time in the kitchen was Lord and Lady Foxton with Antonio
and her two children, all of them smiling and laughing with Jackie and the
situation could not be more different than the previous Wednesday evening.
As I opened the kitchen door, the Foxtons were full of
congratulations to me on the success of the Badger protection programme. “All’s well that ends well,” I thought.
Please watch my short film on Mother Badger and her four Badger cubs,
Daddy Cool's four playful cubs.
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