Books by Ian Rogers
Books by Ian Rogers
When I used to live at Meadow View I would walk my dog, Judy, across the fields to the river and further afield. I explored the woods that covering the slopes overlooking the flood plain and found some clear but meandering paths through the trees. There were also three toned hairs trapped on barbed wire and bushes . From my reading about British wildlife I realised there were badgers nearby. At the top of the ridge, just below a field near to Barlow Church, I found their sett. It was in a bare area under mature elder trees, surrounded by nettles and brambles. There were holes going back into the bank below the field and mounds of earth outside. Badger footprints (five toes, unlike four-toed dog prints) and shreds of straw bedding confirmed that badgers were in residence.
I visited the sett once or twice a week for several years. I would go just before sunset and select a place downwind where I could sit. The sky would fade, the sunset behind Barlow church would change from orange to dusky red. The birds would gradually stop their evening chorus until only a solitary blackbird warbled its last notes. Bats would start to flit across the sky.
I learned to keep very still for two or more hours. It was almost like yoga. I could stare fixedly at the sett’s entrance in kind of a waking dream and click alert as soon as a ghostly black and white striped face peered about and sniffed the air. Then one, or two or even three badgers would emerge. Their first act was to sit and have a good scratch. The adults didn’t usually play much. There might be a bit of head-butting or shoulder- charging, just to emphasise the dominance hierarchy, and some birdlike quacking similar to a single syllable from a mallard. The badgers also chittered and grunted. Then they’d wander away casually into the woods. Two hours waiting for ten minutes watching; less if it I took a flash photograph.
One evening my brother Andrew, who wasn’t usually interested in wildlife, asked if he could come too. I happily took him along and worked out the best place for each of us to sit. I chose a spot about twenty yards from the sett beside the main path to the badgers drinking place. It ran diagonally down the hill. Andrew sat with his legs out and his back against a tree about a yard to one side in the wood while I positioned myself about a yard away on the opposite side. We waited. Dusk crept in. The woods grew quiet.
Suddenly a badger came trotting confidently along the track- until it caught my scent. It bolted away from me, straight over Andrews lap and down into the woods. Andrew gave a loud yell and I was convulsed with laughter. I had accidentally given him a closer look at a badger than I had ever had!
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