Harvest moons, foxes and badgers

[Toddy]

It's a beautiful still clear and incredibly bright night tonight. Huge great moon in the sky; the poor man's lantern indeed Full tomorrow but there's really three days when it's fat and full enough to fill the sky with light.
Our garden lies alongside a nature walk that runs along side a burn. It's a wildlife corridor, and we get visitors
I saw a badger in the garden last week, not full grown and definitely a reddish one, so I've been putting out nuts at night in hopes it'll visit again. All we've seen since though is a line of muddy footprints that were definitely not dog, cat or fox, and I started to fret that maybe all I was doing was encouraging rats. Little while ago though I heard a noise outside the front window and keeked through the blinds to see a young fox snuffling happily around in the grass where I'd thrown the nuts

If there's a fox, it'll take any rats Feeling happier.....now to spot the brock though

atb,
M

 

[Toddy]

......and the badger and the fox have just danced kind of warily around each other, and the bird feeder, and one went one way and the other the other away back into the woods.

M

 

[British Red]

Sounds great to see

 

[treadlightly]

You're very privileged to see that, especially in your garden!

 

[dwardo]

I have still yet to see a badger in the wild, one day.
Thats a great mental image of the fox and badger, very lucky.

 

[Toddy]

They're both back

This time the badger was early enough that Himself wasn't yet asleep, so he really does believe me now

Peanuts, hazelnuts and almonds seem to keep it snuffling through the garden for ages. Less than four feet from the front window and totally unphased with us trying to get a photo

Himself went to bed again, and not ten minutes later the fox came to visit too

I have taken photos, but it's a pouring wet night and I don't know how they'll turn out through the glass. We'll see in the morning.

atb,
M

 

[British Red]

Not sure I would want either visiting too much - both are destructive in their way - badgers can completely trash your garden and Charlie will have your chickens - you might not want to encourage them

 

[Toddy]

I don't keep chickens, and if the friendly neighbourhood poacher hears that there's a fox about, then he'll shoot it.
The badger can turn over our heavy clay soil all it likes....saves me digging it

My garden is so close to the woodland that it's really just an open glade in it. Trees on one side and houses the other; I gave up trying for manicured lawns and beds years ago.

I'm not naysaying your advice BR, but my garden is a kind of tame bit of wilderness really and neither the fox nor the badger will bother me if they're sharing it.

atb,
M

 

[British Red]

Fair play. Brock did a number on my neighbours place when they moved in with a sett. 3' wide holes, trees undermined. Looked like the battle of the Somme. Protected species too unlike Charlie.

 

[Toddy]

I can't see it moving in; too many dogs and cats around and though we're tucked in a quiet corner it's still right next to neighbours, and there are easier sites pretty close by for them too.

I could see the fox chancing it under someone's shed right enough.

The sad bit is that because land round here is so expensive the wild places are all under threat of development
Y'wonder just how many houses we need The schools are bursting at the seams with all the new builds around.

M

 

[Toddy]

Apologies for the quality of the images, but it was a pouring wet night, and I was behind the glass trying to get a shot.
The evening primroses were waving about in front of the window too.
For scale, the bird feeder is about 2m from the window.

I'm still chuffed to see them

 

[Toddy]

Incidentally, to the right of the shot is BR's oca plants

They're huge, about a metre across.

M

 

[Goatboy]

Lovely stuff Mary, can envision your garden/wilderness so much better. It's always a sign that your doing it right to me if you get visitors like that. My brother had foxes build a den in the middle of the city and some of the cubs were fearless enough to enter the house and play with the kids.

Can imagine you pottering about collecting your wares like a hedge witch (in the nicest way) of old. (Maybe even the odd cackle? You have a good laugh).

Will have to see if I can dig out the letter that got printed in Shooting Times about the time Snoop was feeding the local fox when we lived in Glasgow. Normally he would've chased it but they got to killing rats together after heavy rain one night and to his eternal shame fed a fox in front of me. He was a wee sweetie really.

 

[Goatboy]

​Ha found it, not Snoops picture but it did win me two pairs of boots.

 

[Toddy]

That's a great memory of Snoop at his best, Colin
Boundless energy and loving life to the hilt

I'll need to see if I can cackle; I haven't managed it yet right enough
I'm incredibly grateful that I live in a peaceful bit of the world; I have enormous sympathies for those who don't know that peace and calm in and around their homes.

M

 

[Toddy]

Badger TV has kept me patiently amused every evening for weeks now
Highlight was three badgers and a fox all at once right in front of the living room window .......and the windows were open and I was chattering away to them. Only the fox scarpered off behind the honeysuckle; the badgers looked up, grunted a bit, and then heads down back into the wire worms, sunflower seeds and cut up peanut butter sandwiches.

Tonight there are two badgers and the biggest tomcat I've seen in ages, all kind of eyeing each other up and bustling or slinking around.

The badgers are really getting large though; I don't know if it's fat or fur but y'know those ants with the swollen bellies full of honey...imagine a neat brock's head and a big fat body behind it, and that's the shape they're taking on for Winter.
The head and neck movements give away that they're in the same family as weasels but the body is really hefty.

I saw one disappear under the big potentilla bush at the gate, and wondered what it was doing in there. That's where the moggie from across the street hides out and snoozes in the sunshine, it's dry and sheltered there. Then I saw the badger outside on the path, and thought that it'd been a neat trick climbing over. Next morning checked it out and there's a really tidy scrape under the fence into next door neighbour's garden, so now they've access to an entire street of gardens to forage among.

There are deer along the back path and down to the burn; the badgers and foxes are there too, we have a huge range of birds from speugs to woodpeckers, and newts and such like too. This is really suburbia now, yet if there's peace enough and a few wild spaces left, then life thrives.

I honestly believe we need to care for all our network of lanes and hedges and small woods and leave them accessible for wildlife; and if that means feeding it the same way we feed the birds, then so be it.

The street is mostly silent; with folks indoors watching tv or playing with electronics; but outside, the world's bustling along full of life and it's amazing just what there is to see with a little quiet patience

atb,
M

Photos coming.......when I suss out the links

 

[British Red]

Loads of wildlife around right enough - still plenty of swallows and swifts. More pigeons and rabbits and hares than you can count - although we try to reduce them!

Brocks are storing up food for sure - they do not hibernate, but they certainly fatten up anticipating lean times to come