Badger Watch

I am buggered!!!
I stayed up last night to see if I could catch a glimpse of the badgers that have been threatening the hens over the past few weeks, and seeing that they don't usually appear until the witching hour I kept myself busy with the blog and an old Humphrey Bogart Movie on TCM until 1am and then sneaked out into the moonlight to see what was going on.
I took Constance with me as she has the muscle and we sat quietly together in the shadow of the Church wall waiting to see if the badgers would appear.
After an age and from the bottom of the field near to the pig pen they arrived and for wild animals I thought they were extraordinary loud and heavy footed.
Not two or three animals lumbered out of the gloom, but four; and grumbling like old men on the way back from the pub, they bickered and snorted their way up the field, rooting through the grass and sniffing at the coops as they did so.
Badgers are indeed impressive animals to watch in the wild and it didn't take me long to realise just how powerful they are as not seventy feet from where we sat, I watched one aggressively butt his companion with his head with a loud "twack"
Leading the troupe was a huge badger  and I was convinced it was the one that I had kicked the other night when Jesus had copped it and it was him ( or her) that checked the remaining coops with several loud sniffs as the group made their way through the field.
Despite the trouble I have experienced with them, I could not help to admire the sheer beauty of these strange piggy animals very much in a similar way than I did with the pair of foxes that visited the field last year.
The badger group walked up to the broody box and would come no further. I think they sensed that Constance and I was there  but could not quite work out just where we where.( Constance hardly battered an eyelid at ttheir activity by the way!)
Two of them had a good sniff at the box which now housed the bantams but then ambled away after deciding that attacking it was a fruitless endeavour ( the box is now housed inside an impregnable dog crate!)

A photo of a badger taken at my friend Geoff's house in the village way back in 2008

We watched them bumbling around until well after 2.30am and by that time they had left the field and were galloping around our neighbours' garden before trotting off into the sheep fields.
I am paying for lack of sleep now.... I need to bright eyed this morning as I am "interviewing" local powerhouse Audrey Jones ( who at 85 is still a formidable farmer's wife) for the sister blog....and I need to be on my toes
so I think I will try and have 40 winks......fat chance!