Badger Watching

[Albert T Smith 10]

Raymond Greyhound inadvertently came across a badger one night and, being loose (we've learned a lot since then), he decided to 'have a go'. We managed to call him off, but not before the badger had bitten him in the chest and clawed his face. Needless to say, it cost us around £300 in total once we realised that he was full on infection - he had to have an absess drained and a course of antibiotics -and, of course this happened on a weekend when we had to have the 'out of hours vet'. The badger waddled off into the distance, hopefully not too distressed by his altercation. Ramond is now always on his lead when we do the night walk.

 

A great number of people still believe that the Badger is a push-over. In fact, I'll stand correcting here, his jaws are the strongest of any of our wild animals. Usually he goes about is life not bothering anyone else except the ' loud grunts that he makes ' and like most wild creatures lives a peaceful life.

 

The place in Wales where I took the Photographs is really the only spot that I'll been able to be so close to one or more accurately close to six or seven.

 

I've wished a hundred times that I had be more able when using the camera.

I can still recall the Badger, shown on in my second or third photo, looking straight at me through the patio door just inches away and my two dogs mesmerized and stuck for barks!!.

 

In years gone bye I've spent hours sat on a tree branch waiting in vain near to a Sett.

If anyone knows a good Sett to watch, normally they keep it to themselves. From the gassing incident which we had way back in the 1960s, I do not blame them.

 

Whilst I'm on about wild animals. Sometimes the story surfaces that the Fox does not have a natural predator so hunting is the only way to keep their numbers in check.

 

Foxes have been hunted for century's and it as not made one iota of difference to the number except probably making the number increase with them moving where hunting cannot take place. Such as into the suburbs and inner city areas.

 

The natural predator for a Fox is his paw nails. They continue to grow all of his natural life and sooner or later one gets broken. This eventually allows the paw to become infected. If he cannot walk or run he is unable to hunt. Full Stop.

 

That is one reason why you should always try to include a tarmaced footpath when you take your dog a walk. It helps to grind his nails down, invariably a fox does not use the footpath.

 

It would be interesting to have any information about the average age of the Town Fox opposed to the Country Fox. I'm sure that I read a book on this some years ago.