Monday14/09/09 - Vince pays us a visit!

When I arrive at the centre tonight, Juliette is giving the birds their supper and winding things down for the day. Vince, I can hear, is out mowing. A quick chat with Juliette and load up with peanuts and I'm ready for the off. Just then, Vince pulls up on the mower and tells me he's put some paths through the wild flower meadow. We wander down for a look and there are several paths right through the meadow giving close access to all the flowers and bugs. We end up wandering down towards the hide and I ask if he's coming down to see the badgers. Bearing in mind, he's the Director of the Barn Owl Centre and in the two or three months I've been feeding the badgers, he's not been down once! Anyway, he says he's coming down for a look so I hope the badgers show up! Don't get me wrong, he has seen lots of photos and video, so he knows what goes on down here.

We get to the hide and a badger is already in the feeding area. This poses a problem as we have to walk past him to get into the hide. We slowly move closer to him and he notices us approaching and disappears into the hedge. I begin putting the food down and Vince opens up the hide. When I've finished putting the food down, I notice Vince is sat on the step of the hide, feet outside. He suggests giving this a try, so I sit next to him and we wait. It's not long before the badger that disappeared into the hedge a few minutes earlier is back. However, he gets to the feeding area, has a good sniff and a look at us and turns tail and disappears. We wait maybe ten minutes before a second badger appears down the main path. He too sniffs the air, looks at us and follows his mate into the hedge to the right of the hide. Vince whispers "maybe we should get inside?". I agree and we move into the hide. We leave the net up, however and it's not long before the next badger arrives. Now we are inside the hide, the badger approaches without any concerns and is soon about three feet out. He's joined by a second badger and they are right outside the hide now, less than two feet from both myself and Vince. I whistle and throw some nuts out and both animals respond to the noise of the nuts hitting the floor by coming over, noses constantly sniffing as usual. I repeat this additional feeding several times and the badgers put on a great display for Vince and myself. Eventually, something spooks them and they trot off into the night. We take the chance to vacate the hide without spooking any animals and make our way back up to the farm.

We decide to take a walk back around the wild flower meadow to see if anything is about down this end of the farm. As we approach the gate into the Severn Trent reserve, which adjoins the BOC, I hear a noise that sounds like two or three men digging, or chopping trees. I stop and listen and we both turn off our torches. I'm wonder if someone is trying to dig the sett up as the sound is very close to the sett. We get into the little grassy area in front of the gate, but all is quiet now. We stand there for a minute in silence, when suddenly, the noise begins again. This time it sounds like a mixture of digging and bark being ripped off a tree. It's quite loud and a little disconcerting, to say the least. Vince moves in towards the hedge from which the sound is coming from and whatever is making the noise starts moving, thankfully away from us. I actually see the hedge move as the animal moves away from the torches. I run on past Vince to see if I can head whatever it is off, hoping to get a glimpse of it. However, it turns around and heads back towards Vince. I wonder if it might be a deer rubbing it's antlers against the trees to remove the velvet that must now be coming off their new antlers. Anyway, the "thing" moves past Vince and then away from him. I walk back towards him and ask him if he saw it? He only saw a bit of it, but says it was quite large, grey and had a tail. He didn't see the head, only the body and back end through a little hole in the hedge. We walk back up towards the farm considering what it might have been. We can't decide, which is a bit of a concern as I spend most nights down at the hide on my own! I could picture all sorts of things you wouldn't want to bump into on a dark night. As we get close to the farm, more movement in the long grass to one side of the path. We both look for what made the noise with torches, but don't see anything, even though it was almost at our feet. Vince thinks maybe a weasel.

Vince thinks the badgers were great and he genuinely seemed to enjoy that. I hope the same happens tomorrow night as our first paying guests are coming, but with the badgers showing this well, I needn't worry!