On Thursday night I went to try to get the cat to come in before I went off to bed when I spotted him sitting on one of the garden chairs. He is a white chinchilla-persian and he had fluffed himself up so he looked just like a huge snowball. He shot in when I opened the door and hid in his box all wide-eyed. I went back out with the torch and there was a right kerfuffle but I was just too late to get the torch beam on whatever it was. We have had foxes visiting for quite a few years and I just assumed it was that.
I woke up in the morning and opened the curtains to find that my garden had been "unearthed" during the night. Holes everywhere. Earth flung all over the place. Could we have a badger in our tiny edge of town garden? Come to think of it I did wonder where the pears disappeared to overnight which I had put out for the thrush and blackbirds - hmmm badgers do love pears..
Last night I was ready. I waited with my nose pressed up against the dining room window pane for half an hour trying to see into the darkness. Suddenly there it was a vague white stripe going along at ground level. I shone the torch through the window and got him right in the beam. He was a bit surprised but that didn't put him off his worm-search. Snuffling around the lawn (or what used to be a lawn before the torrential rain turned it into a quagmire and consequently a piece of dirt spiked by occasional grassy bits). I opened the back door really quietly and he looked at me and I looked at him. They have very poor eyesight so it took a almost thirty seconds before he realised that perhaps he should be off. That was around midnight. At three this morning I had to let out one of the cats (the neighbours one who had decided to fall asleep in the spare bedroom). I opened the front door and he scooted down the front step (he has got three legs so scoots around in a sort of lopsided fashion but is very fast) when he stopped dead and ran back in. We both cautiously peered around the side of the door and there, not a foot away, was the badger. He looked at me I looked at him ... he ran around the corner and me and the cat went back to bed!
Although it was great to see it I can no longer be a release site for the hedgehogs I help. I don't mind putting out a handful of peanuts now and again but draw the line at providing a hedgehog meal!
Taz x
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Topic: Wild Birds and all things to do with Nature (Read 1759508 times)