"Is That A Badger? "

I woke before 5.00 this morning and lay in bed listening to the sounds of the gale outside. The rain lashing against the windows and the wind roaring in the trees. So good to be warm in bed and know that you don't have to get up for another hour. When I turned on the tv downstairs the first thing I saw were blizzards in Scotland and Northern Ireland with reports of power cuts and people trapped on roads. Here there wasn't any ice on the road when I walked up the hill but just as I got to the car it began sleeting. Lots of cold rain all morning which made us rather concerned about taking our children to do a Sports Relief Mile at the local secondary school. In the end we compromised by jogging around the playground for 15 mins. That way we could head indoors if it rained again. The weather actually improved and it is now sunny despite the icy wind. On the way home this evening I could see snow up on the hills of Exmoor.
Yesterday when I took the car up the hill I decided to spend some time framing shots against different aspects of the sky.

Shortly after I took this photo the black cloud unleashed a bitterly cold hailstorm. It was not so bad as long as I kept my back to the wind, otherwise - ouch.

One the storm had passed there was a lovely golden light and a rainbow.

While marching around the field to play with the angle of my shots I came across what I think is a badger sett. It's too big for rabbits or foxes and there were signs of a bedding pile. Farmers are not keen on badgers as they are believed to be the reservoir for bovine TB which is the scourge of all cattle farmers. Herds are regularly tested and any reactors have to be sent for slaughter and movement restrictions put on the cattle. In some areas the ministry has tried to eliminate the badgers (mainly by gassing) but this has not worked and is highly unpopular with the public. Unless every badger in the country was got rid of at the same time outlying populations will always move in to fill the vacuum where badgers have been removed. It would seem more logical to work on eradicating the disease within the badger population rather than the badgers themselves.

I have another reason to think that it might be a badger sett which dates back to an incident several years ago. One warm(ish) August evening the boys and I had headed up the hill to this spot (not far from the hole) to watch the Perseid meteor showers. I love anything like that and as we are lucky enough to have minimal light pollution (when it's not cloudy) our night skies are very clear. Wearing many layers of clothing we settled down on beach mats and garden cushions lying on our backs in the road to get the best view. I did hope that our neighbour hadn't been to the village pub and wasn't going to drive along squashing us all flat before we could get out of the way. We were well provisioned with biscuits (cookies) and chocolate and I think that was the year Linas brought along a guitar for a little light entertainment. It was a fun evening with the main conversations being; "Wow, look at that!" followed by a chorus of "Where?" and I'm sure a lot of exaggerated claims as to the number of comets seen. Everyone had torches so there was also a certain amount of complaining about torches being shone in people's eyes. Suddenly, Romas who was lying next to me said "Is that a badger?", I shone my torch in the same direction and there walking along the road towards us only a few feet away was a large badger. "Oops " we all went, including the badger who then disappeared. It's amazing how vulnerable you feel lying flat on the ground and I did notice that after I explained that a frightened badger can be quite vicious Romas moved to my other side leaving me on the periphery. Is that a badger ? has now become a family catch phrase and the memory of that evening will always be one I treasure.