Yesterday I found tracks in Scarlett’s sandpit and tentatively identified them as coming from a mouse. Well, I was wrong. Not the first time, won’t be the last either.
The tail drag was the clue, but I didn’t think it through enough. One animal consistently leaves a tail drag – a lizard. I thought about this, but I ruled out a lizard as the source of the tracks because the tail drag was too small. Lizards don’t just drag their tails, they walk with their legs sprawled so their whole body drags on the ground. This means that their footprints are spread wider than the body and that they leave a fairly broad drag mark. In other words, like my tracks, but smaller.
I should have paid more attention to the shape of the trail, and less to its size. Let me pose the question: what leaves tracks like a lizard, only smaller? The answer: a small lizard.
Obvious really, in hindsight. The tracks were made by a small lizard. How can I be so confident now? Well, I found the poor little chap in the sandpit this morning, dead.
It’s a Common Lizard, I think (slightly less common now…) and only a tiny one. He’d obviously climbed in and couldn’t climb out up the smooth sides. It was a hot day, and he must have succumbed to the heat. Despite Scarlett and I playing in the sand for half an hour yesterday, we didn’t see him.
Perfectly obvious, with hindsight. The lesson for me is to think through possibilities when tracking, not make assumptions.
I’m on parenting duty again this weekend, so no badger watching. But there’s always something wildlifey to be seen out there.
Take these tracks for instance. They appeared overnight in Scarlett’s sandpit (yes, I really have used my daughter’s plaything as an impromptu tracking box.
The scale is in centimetres, so the tracks are small. I’m thinking they’re from a mouse from the size and the trail pattern. These tracks have alternate footprints and an obvious tail-drag. The guidebooks are a little unclear on mouse tracks: some say that a tail-drag is present, others not, and the gait of a mouse can be either walking (alternate tracks) or jumping (parallel tracks). Since I can’t think of anything else that could have made them, I’m going for mouse anyway.
I’ve spent most of the day laying the paving on the new play area in the garden, but since it was a nice evening I took Scarlett out for a short stroll. It occurred to me that it’s been a little while since we’ve been for a walk, so I took the opportunity. It’s a longer business now, walking with her, but fun. She alternates walking and being carried, and she insists on stopping to pick up interesting sticks and stones (where did she inherit that habit from, I wonder…?)
We were accompanied on the walk by a Green Woodpecker that kept flitting ahead of us, from treetops to the ground and back again. I’ve seen these in the garden a few times, but oddly, I’ve never seen one in the wild, even though I hear their distinctive ‘yaffle’ call most times I visit the wood. This one was obliging enough to pose for a long-range photograph.
The highlight of our little walk came as we headed back home. A sparrowhawk flew past us along the lane, swooping below the level of the hedgerows on either side. Gripped in its talons was a sparrow-sized bird – it had obviously just caught it and was taking it to secure place to pluck and eat it. A splendid sight, and one that made me glad I’d got outside, even if it was just a brief walk.
One the way back from the library this morning I came across a dead badger by the side of the main road, about half a mile west of my road. I went back this evening to check it out and note any details for the record.
When I got there the badger had gone. All I found, among the litter, fast food wrappers and wheel trims, was a decomposing deer (not pleasant!). As I was in the area, I walked down the verge for a hundred yards or so to see what I could find. The verge here is substantial, varying from 20-40 feet wide, with the road on one side and a boundary wall on the other. There are mature trees and varied undergrowth, from grass and bracken to big patches of nettles and brambles (not the place to be wearing shorts, as I found out).
It was a fascinating little area. I doubt if anyone has walked there or even seen it for years, even though thousands pass by on the main road right alongside. I doubt if there is enough space for full badger sett (they would need to cross the road to reach a decent foraging area, and if this was the case I’d have seen more casualties) but there was a network of paths. Following these, I came across a huge wasps’ nest that had been dug out, so there are obviously badgers in the area. There were wasps still present, so it had been dug out recently, possibly by the same badger that was killed on the road.
I don’t know if this means there is a sett nearby and the verge is part of their territory, or whether this was a lone badger, but it’s given me more clues about the badgers in the area. One thing still puzzles me though – the missing body of the badger. I mean, what sort of person goes round picking up dead badgers off the road? Apart from me, obviously…
Some good news! Having persisted with my sore toe for a week, in which the antibiotics made no impact whatsoever, I sought a second (and hopefully more competent) medical opinion.
The second doctor sent me for X-rays, so after a fun evening at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital, it was revealed that I have neither gout nor an infection, but a broken toe. The X-ray showed a fracture on the first joint of the toe. It wasn’t just a hairline stress fracture, but a significant piece knocked off the end of the bone at the joint. Hence the pain and swelling. I’ve broken toes before, but in this case I just woke up one morning in pain – I didn’t fall over or kick anything. I haven’t even been running for a while.
I’m relieved. It still hurts to walk, but at least it’s a one-off and explainable event. I don’t have a long-term problem.
Mostly explainable. One mystery remains, which has baffled both me and medical science. How the hell can I break a lump of bone off my toe without even noticing it…???
I may be just a grumpy old man with a sore toe, but there are some things that I can’t let pass without comment.
The government has announced that it will go ahead with the widely ill-advised badger cull. The details of how the government proposes to go about this cull are even worse than we imagined. They are relying on ‘ifs’ and making assumptions not based on evidence. At least 70% of the badger population in many areas will be killed, many of them healthy. This decision comes in spite of scientific evidence which shows that culling is a misjudged effort to control bovine TB, will be of little help in reducing the disease long term and could actually make things worse! The frustrating thing is that the science may only be proved wrong when the badgers have been slaughtered and the bovine TB (which is far more likely to be a product of poor farming practices) is still there.
The fact is, a badger cull didn’t work in Ireland. It won’t work here.
Not only is scientific evidence against the government, the public are too. A poll for the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13684482) found unanimous opposition to the badger cull in all areas, rural as well as urban, including those areas worst affected by bovine TB. The arrogance of this government saddens me, but doesn’t surprise me any more. I think I’ll write to my MP again, except she – Nadine Dorries – is very rude and ignored me last time.
Most alarming is the government’s attempt to try to cull badgers on the cheap. They are planning to give farmers licences to shoot badgers on their land. The thought of essentially untrained amateurs going out and taking pot-shots at badgers is horrifying. Shooting badgers is difficult as badgers have a very thick skull, thick skin and a very thick layer of subcutaneous fat and because of the short, squat body and the way their legs work, free-shooting means a high risk of wounding the badgers instead of killing them, causing a slow, painful death.
The RSPCA believes that badgers are being made the scapegoats for a rise in bovine TB in cattle. They are asking supporters to express their outrage at the decision in their tagging campaign via their main facebook page which will act as a petition of sorts. It is vital that we all send a strong message to the government that bad science must not prevail. You can find more information at http://www.facebook.com/RSPCA.
Most of the time I’m generally upbeat about the state of wildlife in the UK. Look at the success stories, like the buzzards, the red kites and the polecats, right here in Bedfordshire. Look at the otters, which are now present in every English county. I never imagined that I’d be living 10 miles away from otters, not unless I moved to the wilds of Scotland or Wales. There are lots of encouraging signs out there that we’re finally starting to respect our natural world.
And then something like this happens. It makes me prostrate with dismal…
My attempts to live my life as a Victorian gentleman have taken another step forward this week. In addition to wearing a tweed waistcoat and a deerstalker hat (plus the mutton-chop whiskers that Mrs BWM won’t let me grow), I now seem to have developed gout.
Gout is a very Victorian illness, but somehow more respectable than cholera or typhoid. It’s something associated with living a proper, excessive gentleman’s lifestyle. I really must ask the cook to cut down on the devilled kidneys, and maybe limit myself to no more than two or three chops for breakfast. And I suppose the large glass of port with each meal will have to go.
Actually, there is still some doubt, so the roast beef and red wine may still be on the menu. It might be cellulitis (some sort of bacterial infection). I think the doctor’s approach is to give you antibiotics anyway – if they solve the problem then it was a cellulitis infection; if they don’t, it’s something else and you’ve endured a week of pain and a £14 prescription charge for nothing. We’ll have to wait and see.
Fascinating medical information, I’m sure, but to be honest it doesn’t matter whether I’ve got gout or cellulitis. The practical impact is that it’s damned painful. And so, gentle reader, I’m afraid I won’t be walking anywhere for a few days at least. I’m just going to be sitting in the house like a grumpy old man with a sore toe.
Sunday evening started off hot, humid and still. The brisk walk up the hill to the wood left me sticky and winded, while the dark clouds gathering overhead showed that the breathless weather would soon break.
The wheat in the wheatfield is ripening. I was pleased to see a new badger dung pit with fresh dung, showing that once again the badgers are using this food source, and also that there are enough badgers for them to mark it out as territory. Having had no luck in seeing badgers lately, I decided to head to the east end of the sett. It’s a risky strategy because the sett is on top of a small rise in the ground and from this side a good 75% of it is out of sight, particularly with the luxuriant growth of nettles, elder and dog’s mercury. Nevertheless, it was at this end of the sett that the badgers were to be found on the last couple of visits. I may see badgers or I may not, but if I were to see one here the chances are that I would get a good view.
It was good to be back in the wood again, to be lying in damp leaf litter instead of walking the streets of the City in a pinstripe suit. It’s a comforting feeling that the woods – the trees, the branches, the animals – are always here, come rain or shine, even when I’m not. It’s nice to think that life goes on without me.
I’d like to say it was peaceful, but the truth it is that the wood was a real cacophony of noise. The sheep in the pasture field baa-ed at each other, a buzzard ‘pee-arrr’-ed from a branch above me, a pair of muntjacs barked loudly at each other, and to cap it off a small flock of great tits chattered in the bushes. This was not an empty collection of trees, but an ecosystem in full flow. I shot a video to record the sound – it doesn’t show anything and it isn’t great quality but it gives you an idea. I should really bring my digital recorder out with me for occasions like this.
At 8.20pm the weather broke and the rain started – big heavy drops. I was sitting under an ancient sycamore coppice, which is as dry a spot as you’re likely to find, so it wasn’t too bad. Within minutes the warm, still air had been replaced by a freshening wind that was strong enough to move the trees around me. Quite surprising how quickly the weather can change.
At 8.40 a badger appeared. Annoyingly it was at the north-east end of the sett, while I was at the south-east, so no chance of pictures. Still, it was good to see a badger in the flesh again.
At 8.50 I heard the sounds of badgers yipping in the impenetrable undergrowth of the sett. This was good, as it meant that at least two badgers were playing happily, albeit invisibly.
By 9.10 no other badgers had appeared and I called it a night. I had to be in work the next day after all. With the wind and rain muffling my movements I headed off. And then, just as I was leaving the wood, I disturbed a badger no more than 20 feet away. We both stopped, surprised, before it crashed off into the undergrowth.
That makes at least three badgers at the sett, which is good. And you know what, I’d swear the badger I disturbed was a cub. I can’t be sure, as I find it very difficult to make snap judgements of badger size when they’re on their own. It’s easy when they’re in a group and you can compare sizes, but on their own it’s more difficult. I always get a little suspicious when I talk to people and they say ‘I saw a badger cub in the field last night’. I’ve spent many hours watching badgers and I still find it difficult to tell a reasonably-grown cub from an adult. But perhaps that’s just my lack of perception. Anyway, I digress. This badger looked cub-like in its size and it’s fluffy grey coat. It may be wishful thinking on my part, but I hope that it was.
I walked home in the rain, very happy despite the weather.
As I drove to work this morning a stoat dashed across the road in front of my car (know a stoat by its black-tipped tail). This was just over the road from the field behind my house, so it was close to home.
Stoats are, of course, members of the Mustelid family, along with badgers, weasels, pine martens, otters and polecats. The name ‘Mustelid’ comes from the latin mustela, meaning weasel. This name in turn comes from two words: mus – mouse, and telum – spear. In other words, mouse-like-a-spear.
Spear-mouse.
It’s a great name. When you see one of these long, slim, lithe creatures running along, it’s a surprisingly good description.
Update
As I drove home after work on Friday I had another stoat cross the road in front of me, on the main road about 100 yards away from the first. I drive to and from work each day for ages without seeing a stoat, and then there’s two in two days. It’s obviously stoat-time…
Hmmm. It seems I’ve been neglecting my badgers a bit lately. Sorry about that. Some sort of explanation is in order, I shouldn’t wonder.
I’ve been busy again. A few weekends ago I went down to Avebury in Wiltshire for the solstice (it was rubbish – the National Trust closed all the car parks and effectively killed any celebrations). The weekend after that we had friends round (very nice) and I spent last weekend digging and levelling the foundations of a play area for Scarlett (seemed to consist mostly of shovelling two tonnes of sand from one place to another), picking fruit and making jam (seedless raspberry, for Mrs BWM’s famous home-made jammie dodgers). Add to that the usual demands of being a pater familias and holding down a responsible job as the Senior Consultant in a firm of business psychologists in the City of London, well, it’s been busy.
I managed to see one badger last week. I had a late night at the HR Excellence Awards in London. I didn’t win an award, but driving home at 1.00am I did have a badger cross the road in front of me, on a small lane about half a mile from my house. I’ve seen paths on the roadside verges here, but this is the first time I’ve seen a badger on them. Only a brief sighting, but it adds another detail to my badger map of the area.
Anyway, one quick glimpse of a badger doesn’t make me a badger watcher. I made time on Sunday to get outside and see what the badgers were doing, without great results. I still haven’t got to grips with the badgers at the Hawthorn Sett, so that was where I headed.
I arrived at 7.30pm and left at 9.30pm, but without so much as a peep of a badger. My fieldcraft was sound. I was joined by a rabbit that sat for half an hour between me and the sett. Rabbits are, in my experience, more sensitive than badgers. If the rabbit wasn’t disturbed by my presence then the badgers wouldn’t be either. The sett is plainly in use – there are at least four active holes here. But there were no badgers in evidence.
Perhaps this is an odd sett, where the badgers don’t play by the rules. It is quite close to the road, so maybe they’ve adapted to disturbance by coming out late. Who knows?
As a consolation I stopped to watch some deer on the way home. The wheat is ripening in the fields, and the muntjac and chinese water deer are almost hidden, which means you can almost walk past without seeing them. I really must get out more often. Perhaps I’ll make time one of these evenings to see how the barn owls are doing, or maybe check out some of the new setts I’ve found.
Tales from the Wood - The Diary of a Badger Watching Man 